By Monica Jones
We have lost another colourful character. Sadly Joy McQuade passed away in February, on her 93rd birthday.
Joy was indeed colourful in many ways, one being her remarkable and unique style of dress, usually a colourful kaftan. Joy also had a remarkable mind and memory and had been ‘Brain Of Britain’ for the BBC in her younger days. She was a classicist and mathematician, teacher and performer, an all round inspira-tional person but modest with it. Moira Ed-wards remembers “She had a deep love and knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays but bore her knowledge lightly, never seeking to dis-play her erudition unnecessarily”.
Joy loved the arts. She was both an actress and a director. She played for the Shepperton Players and when the Riverside Arts Centre (RAC) in Sunbury was purchased, she be-came very involved in both the building work and the fund raising. Back in the day, she was frequently part of the construction team build-ing up the giant raked seating on a Tuesday and packing it away on a Sunday after the end of a run. She went on to become very in-volved in the Sunbury & Shepperton Arts Association (SSAA), both in organising events and taking part herself. She was al-ways first in the queue to offer practical help, like putting out the tables and chairs at the concerts and coffee mornings. Pianist and friend Millan Sachania laughingly recounts “I was once accosted by a member of the audi-ence after a jazz evening who told me that I should be ashamed of myself allowing this ‘old woman’ (Joy would not mind this epithet) to stack the chairs after an event. Try stop-ping her, I retorted!”
Joy had a lovely speaking voice and loved both music and poetry . She often read in the popular Words and Music programmes (of which SSAA staged over a dozen to raise funds in support of RAC).
Moira Edwards remembers “Joy’s own pro-ductions for Shepperton Players at Riverside were brilliant, particularly her reverse role production of Merchant of Venice which was greatly admired. As an actress I remember with pleasure her excellent performance as Gertrude in the Shepperton Players’ outdoor production of Hamlet. Riverside had enor-mous good luck to enjoy the dramatic gifts and generosity of Joy McQuade over many years and will be remembered there with great affection for many years to come”.
We hear that Joy and Brian ‘s house in Chert-sey is an absolute treasure trove of things of rare beauty including much furniture (some of it antique) which Joy hired out to local drama societies and then donated the proceeds to charity. Joy was also famous for picking coins up she found in the street, and donating them to Rotary and other charities.
Joy was committed to Rotary. A member from 2009 until her death, she is remembered by them for raising money for the Sinebongo housing project in East London, South Africa. She later volunteered to become President in 2009. She was also a founder member of the Music Club and an avid collector of dolls houses. It is hoped her collection will remain intact as a legacy to this wonderfully colourful lady who will be sadly missed by so many.