This is the tribute I read at Joanne’s online memorial event on 7 March 2021:
Joanne lived close to half her life in the UK and I think was always torn between the two continents. My family were her London family and she used to visit and stay a lot. As a child growing up in the sixties and seventies, to me Joanne was an exciting, glamorous role model: a rebel, a hippie a beautiful wild person with equally colourful friends. She was also warm, generous, opinionated but non judgmental,; great company and a strong memorable personality.
Last year my mum Enid, Joanne’s aunt died. When it looked like Enid, didn’t have long, Joanne was desperate to come over to see her, but in typical style realised that her passport had expired. At mum’s funeral she sent a lovely tribute and I would like to read from it - it is her voice and it had several of us in stitches at the funeral:
“In 1969, I lived on Eel Pie Island which was an island on the Thames in Twickenham. A group of us began living in the, once famous, now derelict, Eel Pie Island Hotel. During the first few months of our tenancy, (we, actually, paid rent to the owner) we attracted a lot of attention, due to our hippy appearance. Inevitably, we were busted by the police one dawn, who believed the place was awash with drugs. They found nothing illegal, and possibly out of frustration, took one married couple's tiny children, saying the hotel was unfit for them.
“I rang Enid and Ernest to tell them what happened. Immediately, Enid went to the police to make a complaint about the children's removal. As a London Councillor, she carried some weight. That complaint led to the return of the children, and Enid went on to make a complaint at Scotland Yard about the police's unjustifiable behaviour. She encouraged me in a non-forceful way, to lodge a complaint also, because I had been stripped searched by a male policeman with several other policemen in my room. As a result, the police were formally reprimanded, and some officers were demoted. Now you know where Harriet gets it!”
Sometimes when people close to you die, the memory of them begins to slip away, but Joanne is still so vivid and alive in my memory, it is hard to believe she is gone.