Dreams of a Life (2011) Movie Script
Some days you would get good
stories, others not so good.
When the story of Joyce
was brought back to the office,
I think there was
a stunned silence for a minute.
I don't think anyone had really heard
a story like that before.
Reporters always get asked,
"What's the best story you've done?"
Or the strongest story
or the worst story or whatever.
And this is my like clutch of ones
that you would remember
through a lifetime.
'You wanted to write it
and tell other people.
'That's that's the power of it, really.
'Ali said to me, "You go down
to the inquest and cover it."'
'We knew pretty quickly
that it was out of the ordinary.
'I worked at the paper for ten years
and there wasn't a story like it.
'There was such a remarkable lack
of information about Joyce Vincent.
'It was so hard
to find anything about her.'
Miss Vincent?
Miss Vincent,
we've a repossession order!
'It always struck me as strange
'how there's just swarms of thousands
of people going around their business,
'getting their shopping,
meeting their friends
'and all this time
there was a woman in the ats above
and nobody knew that she was there.
Trying to let her know
there's somebody at the door.
We've a repossession order!
'You really wanted
to find out more about this woman.'
It was a story that everyone wanted
but no one could get.
# Watch me fall from grace
# Disappear with no trace
# As I try to erase you
# Feel the pain and watch me bleed
# Surely this is not what I need #
Hello, it's Carol here, Carol Morley,
phoning about Joyce.
I'll try your mobile.
I'll try you again. Bye.
I'm looking for any infomation,
no matter how minor,
about Joyce Vincent.
'I was sitting at home one day
and I don't know if you do this,
'you just put someone's name
into Google.
'And I don't know what made me do it.
I just put Joyce's name in.
There was loads of links
to all these news stories.
I thought, "Ooh, that's a coincidence.
Someone else with Joyce's name."
'Then I scrolled down
and I saw your advert
'and I thought, "Oh, crikey.
It must be the same person."'
I got your email on Friends Reunited
asking, "Did I know Joyce Vincent?"
And straight away it was just
hairs up on the back of my neck, arms
and it was quite a shock, actually.
When you called I was at work
and I'd had a couple of missed calls,
anonymous calls,
and I thought they were my mum,
so I was just ignoring them.
Then I thought, "That's the fourth call.
I'd better take this one."
And the line broke a little bit,
so I was thinking,
"Did she just say Joyce is dead?"
Lots of people I've met
that knew her read the story
and didn't realise it was Joyce.
Really?
- They couldn't...
They didn't identify the victim - dead,
lonely, sad - with the Joyce they knew?
No.
- Isn't that interesting?
'It's even more interesting then.'
I was just amazed that
we'd not heard this from anybody
or nobody had realised.
How did they not know
from the electricity bills?
'I wrote to the utilities because I thought,
'normally if you don't pay your bill,
you get cut-off.
'I wrote to the local authority
because I thought,
"'Well, she must have had
council tax to pay."
'They sort of didn't want to know.
'They washed their hands of it.
"Nothing to do with us."'
- 'I found friends...'
- 'How did you find them?'
Because the police couldn't
and the authorities couldn't?
So how did you? Clever girl.
I mean, you'd like to think
that everyone's got someone
who would kind of look out for them.
'And it just seemed remarkable,
'given all the information
we had about Joyce,
'although it was quite limited,
'it just seemed strange
and highly unusual
'that there was no one there for her.'
It's just tragic.
You know, and the fact
that she was left all alone.
They said it's 2003
when she died, yeah?
And then this is '06. Wow!
"Probably died of natural causes."
"The only way she could be identified
"was by comparing dental records
"with a holiday photo of her smiling."
WOW!
Flies and a smell and nobody noticed.
"Skeleton of Joyce
found on the sofa with telly still on."
There's not even a picture
of her in there.
It's surprising they didn't put
a photo of her in the paper
because that would be one reason
to have the article in there.
There was nothing there
that would give it away.
You know, just the name Joyce,
"skeleton of Joyce".
I mean, that could be anyone.
Her bed-sit looks like a hovel as well,
doesn't it?
Have you been to the bed-sit?
Is it as shitty as it looks?
It's bad enough reaching 40,
let alone being 40 and alone.
It's awful, shocking!
It was so horrendous, you know,
that she was left,
found in front of her television
that was still on for so many years,
and nobody knows this.
Yeah, just gained access.
No, it's horrible. It's annoying.
Can't believe it.
Just to be sad and...
I think it was an MP
who was absolutely disgusted
about the fact that we could just allow
someone to disappear off the radar.
I don't know what in the end
caused her to die alone in her at.
She wasn't alcoholic, she didn't smoke,
she didn't take drugs.
I don't know what made her
the Joyce Vincent that I knew
and I don't know what took her
to the Joyce Vincent that died.
I remember the story.
I heard it on the news.
I remember the whole thing.
Didn't recognise it as her.
I think that was
the terribly sad thing, really.
That, you know,
no one had reported her missing.
Worst of all, her family
hadn't reported her missing.
Four sisters!
Four sisters!
I don't know why
I'm always stuck on that significance
of three years
and nobody's come looking for you.
But it is that. I reckon
that says a lot for the beginning.
Some of the details
that oated around early on
were mysterious.
'"Ms Vincent's local MP
and members of her family said
"they want a full investigation
into how she died."'
The trouble with this is
that there was no...
You can't establish the cause of death
without a body.
I think somebody killed her.
It's a body melting into the carpet,
basically.
That's... That's just... It's grim.
There's nothing there for us now,
just a fair old mark on the carpet.
Oh, my God.
I think she was murdered, you know.
It's too clean cut.
If it's wet and if it's not yours,
you can't take any risks.
'The police said
there was nothing suspicious,
'but unless you knew what happened,
you will always think
'there's a possibility
of some kind of foul play in there.'
'It does seem strange,
everything about it.
'She was in that at.
Nobody kind of questioned it.
'An inquest last week
returned an open verdict
'but heard that a police investigation had
ruled out any suspicious circumstances.'
'It's one of those inquests
where it's difficult to find answers,
'which is immediately frustrating.
'You have this mystery that's thrown up
and you just want to know more.'
With all this DNA stuff,
testing and what have you,
I'm sure they can find some way
of finding out what really happened.
I think there's more to it
than meets the eye.
You'd probably never find out
the true story of it.
It'd be another JFK all the way.
'I was working late one evening.'
I was friendly with her
and she came round and said,
"Do you want to go out for a drink?"
And I said, "Yeah, all right, then."
Didn't really read anything into it.
She seemed very fond of him
but they were a very unlikely pairing.
Very unlikely.
I had no idea
she was attracted to me at all.
And...
And then I actually developed,
you know, a love for her.
'And one day I said,
'Would you like to go to this hunt ball?"
'She seemed a bit hesitant at first
and I thought, 'Well, that's strange.
"'I thought she was attracted to me."
'I think it was something to do
with leaving the confines of London
'where she was quite happy.'
I think Martin rolled in in his car
that he'd completely written off
on the way down.
It was just...
He had a little cut on his head.
And she turned up
later than everybody else
wearing this dress,
this sort of powder-blue rubber dress.
The one moment that will stick
in everybody's mind
was the first time everybody saw her
when Martin brought her out.
"I'm bringing this girl I work with."
We'd heard about her.
She turns up,
she's got a spray-on dress.
And you go, "You jammy bastard."
# If you should see me
# And I'm smiling
# Don't think my smile
# Is for real #
'Martin will kill me for saying this,
'but we were all a bit shocked
'that Martin was going out
with someone quite so stunning.'
'I was astounded.
Absolutely astounded.
We couldn't believe he could end up
with somebody like that.
'But no, she was lovely
and she quite clearly adored him.'
'I was really chuffed
to go out with her.'
I know everyone liked her,
you know.
More than just liked. Fancied her.
'It's an ego trip, isn't it
for any bloke
'if they've got an attractive girlfriend
that everyone else likes.'
'Petite and yet, you know,
a good figure.'
Small feet, I should imagine.
'Great hair, lovely eyes,
'well manicured hands.
'Yeah, pleasing.'
'Maybe my heart
was autter as well.
'I secretly fancied her,
like we all did.
'She was lovely.
Some people are like that.
'Some people are annoyingly happy.'
And other people are just nicely happy.
When you talk to them, they lift you.
'I just can't imagine her
dying alone.
'It was kind of prophetic because
she always felt that she would.'
'It might have been the asthma,
that she could have passed like that.'
'She might have been happy to pass.
Maybe she weren't happy with her life.'
'If you get really bad asthma
you can't move.
'She wasn't terribly good
at taking those Ventolin puffers,
'which she really should
have been doing more often.'
'She used to get pains.
'One night she collapsed.
She was in a lot of pain.
'She had some serious abdominal pain.
'She had ulcers at the time
and didn't know.'
'I was wondering
whether that was stress-related
considering where she was.
'She might have wanted
to just cease to exist from people.
She might be embarrassed
of where she was living.
'She might have wanted
to just be left alone.
'She might not have wanted
to contact her family.'
'She was always
the centre of attraction.
'People would always
gravitate towards her.
'She was like a magnet.'
'She looked like she'd had a good
education from the way she spoke.'
I don't know
what kind of education she had.
'I'd have thought
she was educated at a nice school,
'a sort of colonial school.'
'It was just a nice school,
pleasant to go to, pleasant people.'
It was just friendly, playing.
Happy times for everybody.
Whether the weather be cold,
whether the weather be hot,
we'll be together,
whatever the weather,
whether we like it or not.
'Joyce's mother
had elocution lessons for her
'and she had quite a posh voice, really.
'I think when people met her,
they were a little bit taken aback.'
'I just suddenly started
to hear her voice.'
And the sound of it,
cos I'd actually forgotten.
Very soft.
Very clear, well spoken.
'Not common.'
'But not sort of posh.
It was just nice.'
'They taught her to walk,
taught her to speak.
'Everything was very nice
but not in a kind of contrived way.
'You didn't feel like
she was putting it on.'
She was relaxed in that position,
but she was very comfortable.
And she was striking in that way.
She definitely wanted
something more out of life,
whether it was to be somebody
or to have somebody.
I would imagine
she was coming from somewhere,
trying to get to somewhere.
The best way she knew how is,
"I need to look good.
"I have my features.
I have my brains."
Joyce never let on how clever she was.
'I think she was a very bright girl,
but she just played it down.'
'French, grade three.'
Nature studies, grade five.
Social studies, grade four.
Grade E... So she didn't have
any GCSEs or A-levels?
She gave the impression
she was very well educated, yeah.
I'm not saying that
I had great conversations with her
about, you know,
what the meaning of life is
or anything like that.
'I always put her
in the same class as the rest of us,
'which is, what, middle class.
'She kept up with the rest of us
'which is why no one ever suspected
she was any different to the rest of us.'
And Maths ungraded as well.
Maths is ungraded as well, yeah.
That's quite amazing.
- Considering the area of work.
I mean, that is quite
something else really.
'Maybe she wasn't good at exams.
'She never came across as somebody
that was not academically clever.'
I think she said
she was something in finance
and I just kind of thought,
"Oh, I thought you were a secretary."
'She had a really responsible job.'
'Well, she worked
in the treasury department
'so she was involved with moving
the company's money around, really,
'and just putting money out on deals.'
We're not just talking
small amounts.
We're talking about millions of pounds.'
She wasn't throwing money around.
'I mean, she liked to go out
and have a meal, buy a few clothes.
'Nothing spectacular.
'I can't ever remember her
spending money on a holiday.'
'She was very independent.
'Didn't rely on men.
'I know a lot of women
who just make a living off that.'
She just reminded me
of somebody that...
I suppose somebody
that I would like to be, almost.
Because I can be a bit scatty
in my dressing and getting myself ready
and everything about her
was just immaculate.
'Obviously she used to get
a lot of male attention.
'Because she was a lovely person.
She was a bubbly person.
'She was a very well liked person.'
I've got a really kind of special memory
of her at the Christmas party,
'She wore this most beautiful dress.'
'She was always well turned out.
She always turned quite a few heads.'
She did, yeah.
- Certainly at that party.
'Joyce being Joyce,
she'd had a couple of drinks.
'She was determined
she was going to have a go at this thing,
'whether she had
a 400 dress on or not.
And she tried to grab the sides.
And as she did that,
a kind of cleavage of boobs
popped out of her dress
and she was trying to hold on
to the side of this thing.
'She stood there for five or ten minutes
just laughing her head off.
'If I was wearing a dress like that,
I wouldn't go on one of them bungees.'
Everything revolved round
whoever she went out with
or whatever job she did.
'No lifetime friends
as far as I could see.'
'The thing that always stuck
in my mind was this bond
that her and Martin used to have.
He seemed to be her rock.
Whatever happened in her life,
'she always seemed
to come back to him.
'But I wonder what she did
when she wasn't seeing Martin.
'I know they didn't live together.'
Maybe Martin was her closest friend
and anyone Martin knew automatically
became her circle of friends.
'It was Martin who said,
"Oh, it's Joyce's 21st."
'And I said, "Oh, right. Great!"
'I actually remember
her 21st party
'in the place we can never remember
above The Beetroot.'
'I think it was called Moonlighting
in Dean Street.'
'It was a good evening.
'It was just that incident
of the police stripogram.'
'This guy turns up
and he was dressed as a vicar.
'Everyone was quite sober, really sober.
I think it was relatively early.
It didn't seem like it was a late night.
And everyone was just,
"Oh, my God. What is this guy doing?"
# Everybody needs cash to spend
# Everybody needs love and affection #
'It was just completely wrong
for him to be there.'
If you were drunk,
I'd imagine it would be hilarious,
but it just wasn't.
Anyway, he started ripping off...
He had Velcro on the back of his shirt
and he ripped off his top.
He had this really skinny, white body
with ginger hair. It was just awful.
Not that if he was a good-looking bloke,
it would have made any difference.
It was just like, "No, please stop.
Keep your clothes on. Don't do this."'
'Everybody was just
really embarrassed.'
# Go round the world again and again
# Meet a girl on a boat,
meet a boy on the train #
Then he had a bit of a fit
because someone threw
some clotted cream at him or something
and it hit him in the chest.
'And we were all like school kids
with this naked vicar telling us off.
'But it was just excruciatingly
embarrassing, really bad,
'I think Joyce was just horrified.'
Who threw that one?
That almost caught me in the eye!
That's it. I'm going.
'I don't know to this day
who organised it.'
Whether it was Martin.
He might have done, but it seems odd.
It doesn't seem
like the sort of thing he'd do.
Joyce told me a sister or sisters
had colluded to organise it.
'I don't remember
if her family was there.
I just seem to remember
it being the friends
she'd acquired through Martin, I think.
'I did say to Martin,
"That's odd, isn't it?
"'There's all your mates here
and it's Joyce's 21st."
'Maybe she had a real 21st
some other time
'and these were just like Martin's mates
just to keep them quiet.'
And maybe she had her real 21st
in another guise somewhere.
'Maybe she didn't want different groups
of friends to mix. I don't know.'
Loads of people asked me,
'Where's her family?
'Where are her sisters and her friends?
"It's all your friends."
And I said, "I don't know, really."
I just never met any of them
or her family.
'I thought it was extremely unusual.'
Good morning and welcome.
England world champion
rugby players will find themselves
in the biggest scrum
of their lives today,
when half a million fans turn out
for a victory parade.
# LA
# Is just too much for him
# So he's leaving the life
# We've come to know
# He's leaving
# On the midnight train to Georgia #
'Her mother was
from an Indian extraction,
'although she came
from the West Indies.
'I think her mother came
from quite a good background.
'She did mention something
about tea plantations.
She talked about her parents,
the fact that her mother was from India
and her father was from Grenada.
'I think her mother died
when Joyce was 11.
'I think her mother was about 41.
'Clearly, she was an influence on Joyce.
'A positive influence.'
'She had older sisters
'and her sisters took parental control
of her and brought her up.'
'Sometimes the youngest one
gets a bit more love lavished on them.
'Not deliberately.
It just happens, doesn't it?'
I always thought
she was well brought up
in a Caribbean style
of well brought up.
What we call brought upsy.
She had brought upsy, we call it.
She had that.
'She knew how to behave,
knew how to eat at the table.
"'Don't drain your cup and clean up
your plate like you've been starved."
'She had all the right things.'
'She talked about her dad
being a West Indian, working-class guy.'
'Her father was a carpenter.
I don't consider that working-class.
'That's a trade, you know.'
She used to refer to him as Pork Pie.
'She said he was
a typical West Indian man.
'He wore the pork pie hat and
he used to walk with a bit of a swagger.
'He used to go out with his suits on
'and chat up young girls
'and just basically think
he was still in his 20s and 30s.'
And she just kind of thought...
that as her father,
he should be a bit more grown-up.
I remember him always being in a suit,
a business type man.
Whether he worked away or something,
I don't know.
'She wasn't proud of her dad.
'I always thought
it was the working-class background
'she didn't want to own up to
or have any connection with.'
Families fall out.
They don't get on.
- I suppose so.
I never saw my brother for six years.
I mean, I think you get that in families.
Somebody must have said,
"Hey, we haven't heard from her
"for two months,
"six months,
"a year,
"Christmas.
'We're having Christmas dinner.
Where's Joyce?"
The real standout information,
the poignant side of this
was that when they found her body,
she was surrounded
by Christmas presents.
If she was wrapping Christmas presents,
how come no one knew?
'If I departed in my at
and that was it,
'apart from my family,
the landlord would be around.
'Someone would come looking.'
'And the neighbour.'
There were funny smells
coming into his house.
Why the hell didn't he inform the council?
'Why didn't they think,
"It's coming from next-door.
"'Let's kick the door in"'?'
'Somebody had tried
to knock on the door a couple of times.
'I think maybe the noise of the telly
had started to be noted.
'But they just thought
that she wasn't answering the door.'
'That's the depressing thing.
'You've got Saturday night TV,
Big Brother,
'all these people speaking at this corpse
and Ally Pally looking down over her at.
'It was very easy to lose touch
because she would just move.
'There can't be a point on the compass
in London where she hasn't lived.'
# Mr Magic
# Mr Magic
# For any love problem,
you just come to Kirk
# Cos I got the remedy
# And it always works
# One day this lady said
her man was such a bore
# That he made love
and her feel like a daily chore #
She came to Kirk's place to rent a room.
That's the first time I seen her,
when she moved in.
When people would call up
as I'm having to share a house,
'I would tell them, "I'm black."'
And she said,
"Yes, well I'm black, too."
I moved in April, May '88.
She would have moved in
about a month after that.
Well, she fitted in very good.
'My house was kind of
people in and out, musicians.'
'He had a studio
at the bottom of his garden.
He used to play the pan.
I used to love that sound.
'She told me Captain Sensible came
round to record something there.'
'She'd up dress
in a French maid's outfit.
'Black stockings and a garter.
The whole works.
Risqu.
That little French outfit she had on.
She looked nice in that.
'I didn't ask her.
She just suggested taking a day off work
'and being the maid for the day.'
'She was just happy-go-lucky.
We were just 24, 25.
'No responsibilities, no bills to pay.'
Just the rent.
There was nothing to be unhappy about.
'A lot of people that came to the house,
they did think that she was stuck-up
and that she didn't want to be black.
'She was trying
to be something that she wasn't.'
'Every time I'd visit my uncle,
just playing, she'd be there.'
She was a really pretty girl
and when I was little,
I used to say to her...
I used to ask if I could brush her hair.
'She was very comfortable
with my nieces and nephews.
I would have expected her
to have had children
because she did like children.
Don't know what I'm doing
but I'm just going like that.
I suppose she used to entertain me
because I was a little boy.
Seven, eight, nine...
'It was a really good time.
She was the perfect atmate.
'She was easy to get on with.
She was easy to live with.'
'And I said,
'Well, I don't really want
'to live with people
that I have to moan at.'
She was a bit untidy
in the bathroom.
The ring around the tub.
Yes, like a Saturn ring. Yeah.
Some days you'd be thinking
Joyce was nice
but, hey, that bathroom was in a state.
It was black
with that kind of dirt
that's stuck to the sides black.
I touched it and said, "My goodness!
I wouldn't step into
this with my ip-ops!"
She didn't do manual labour.
She just wasn't a hard worker.
She was lazy.
I'm thinking to myself,
"if she ever makes it,
she's going to have to get a maid.
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me #
Hi, my name's Joyce
and that's nice.
No way!
Is that her voice?
God.
It's quite chilling, isn't it?
But so playful as well.
Hi, my name's Joyce
and that's nice.
Well, that's extraordinary.
WOW!
Wow, that's like a blast from the past.
Yes, and that is Joyce.
Hi, my name's Joyce and that's nice.
Hi, I'm Joyce and that's nice.
She's putting a voice on.
That brings back
SO many memories NOW.
Hi, I'm Joyce and that's nice.
Where's that from?
Oh, yeah, these were some
of the people Kirk used to get
when he bought a nice studio.
He wanted a certain little sound
to come out.
Oh, I thought he had lost that tape
a long time ago.
Yeah, that was... That's her.
Flirtatious.
Sexy, wasn't she?
She was sexy.
The first time she says, "I'm Joyce,"
that sounds like her.
Not that beginning bit.
But as it got into it.
I know it's very short.
And then it sounds
like she's trying to be a bit more street,
but it doesn't really come across,
does it?
That is almost
a little bit unrecognisable
but the rest of it, you just catch
the essence of her voice there.
Hi, my name's Joyce and that's nice.
Hi, I'm Joyce and that's nice.
That's strange.
It doesn't sound like Joyce.
See, that's it!
It brings a person to life.
She's not...
She's not, you know...
You're not talking pathologists
any more, body uids,
stains on carpets or whatever,
all of that grim...
You're just talking about a human being
who's lived and sounds full of vibrancy.
WOW!
# Tell me
# Tell me #
'When we initially met,
she wanted to be a singer, so...
'I owned a recording studio. I arranged
for her to go along and do a session.'
But, as much as I loved her,
Joyce was not a singer.
I told her
she could mime in the background.
# No pain
# No gain
# No
# There was an old lady
sitting under a tree #
'Joyce had a very lovely voice.'
Very, even at a young age.
'You'd put her in
with Shirley Bassey, Donna Summer.'
'If you meet Whitney Houston
for example, you know this is a star.
You wouldn't have to see her on TV.
You just know.
If you meet Aretha Franklin,
you know this woman's a star somehow.
'Who are you?"
That certain something, Joyce had that.
Well, she had a very good voice.
# No pain #
There would be crowds,
girls and boys
dinner ladies,
whoever was out in the playground,
automatically
just crowding round Joyce
and just enjoying her entertaining you.
'But she wasn't a show-off.
'It was just something she enjoyed
and loved and was good at.'
'She wasn't afraid
of getting up and performing.
'And yet she was
very modest about it,
'because she didn't boast the fact.
"Oh, I can do this. I can do that."'
I'm not sure anybody...
...heard her sing or...
- No.
No.
# Sometimes owers mean
# Maybe we should just be friends
# You get my drift?
# Hang if you can hang
# No pain, no gain #
OK, that was great. I'm going
to come round and see you now.
'Thank you very much.'
That was Joyce Carol Vincent
singing to you live.
I used to say she's got the package.
She's a good singer,
she's an attractive girl.
Joyce Carol Vincent.
Boom.
Can I kiss you?
What?
A lot of people said
she looked like Whitney Houston.
I thought she was
more attractive than that.
Sorry!
- Sorry. I'm sorry about that.
I got carried away
by the way you were looking at me.
It was just...
It was just a song!
She did play me
a tape that she had done.
I remember being absolutely amazed
because it sounded fantastic.
# Everybody needs love and affection #
When she used to sing
around the house, I didn't like it.
'Maybe I've got a thing about people
just singing around the house.'
I think she did meet a few musos.
After I went out with her.
She had the Sade thing, you know,
with tight trousers, high waistband,
hair tied back.
Very exotic, beautiful.
Everybody fancied her, you know.
And Sade was huge at the time as well.
I think she got that quite a lot.
"You look like Sade."
# I'm the kind of girl
# I want that whole wide world
# Nothing more, nothing less
# I don't want second best #
'She was stunning.
'She was the sort of girl
most girls would probably be jealous of.
'But for fellas it was easy. As soon as
you looked at her, your jaw dropped.'
Because she was so friendly,
if we went to a nightclub or something
and I had to nip off to the loo,
you'd come out
and there's be inevitably
someone talking to her.
And she'd go,
"Oh, he's a very nice chap."
And I'd just go,
"Oh, my God. Here we go.
"'You don't understand."
'She just took them
as all being very friendly.'
'Underneath it all
I think she was a bit of a minx.
'I think she was a bit naughty.
You didn't see that much of it.
'But there were gaps in her personality
that you could see.
'She wasn't one of those people
'that made girls in a crowd
feel uncomfortable
'by irting with men.'
I think she was just very aware
of the fact that she was pretty.
She was full of life
and therefore attractive.
'She didn't need
to do any more than that.'
'I don't think there was
a man on earth that didn't turn his head.
She would attract attention
and just become the complete focus
and it was hard to get rid of men.
'They wouldn't take no for an answer.
'You just had to sit back
and watch it happen.'
'She was the kind of person
that you would imagine
'ending up with Jay-Z,
Quincy Jones, a big, big name.'
When I was going out with her,
she told me
that the drummer
in Culture Club had asked her out.
She said, "I said no."
'I said, "Oh, thanks!"
'You assumed that people
better looking and younger than you
'were having a better time.'
You'd just see someone and think,
"I'll bet they're out all the time,
having a great life."
'She was quite mysterious.
'She could drift in and out
of situations and friendships
'Not easily,
but she would just not be there.
'Sometimes you wouldn't see her
for six months.'
'I always got the feeling
she was a bit of a drifter.
We didn't see her all the time.'
'I remember once we were supposed
to go off to some dinner.
'And she said, "Oh, I can't go.
'She'd been out the night before.
'I thought she'd been out
with some other bloke, you know.
'But she said,
"Oh, no, it was nothing."'
I didn't fully believe it,
to tell you the truth.
'She was quite secretive.
I think she wasn't clear.
'She would say, "I'm off clubbing."
I don't think it was with Martin.
'So I'm not sure
who she was going with.'
'I don't think
he was seeing anybody else
'but they didn't seem
to spend their whole time together.
'You'd ask Martin
if he was going out with her.
'He wouldn't answer you directly
so you wouldn't really know.'
If you're in a close-knit bunch of friends,
things are bound to happen
because you're all of the same...
You have similar
tastes and interests
and that often extends to girls as well.
So if something happens,
something happens, doesn't it?
By Martin's own admission,
he's no oil painting.
'He's a nice bloke
but he's not the tallest of chaps.
'They were an odd couple.'
'William was
in Hemel Hempstead
and he'd split up with his girlfriend
'I said,
"Oh, it's no good moping around.
'Why don't you come up to London?"
"There'll be three girls there and me.
It will be a bit claustrophobic."
'I managed
to persuade him to come up.'
I think William did like her, yeah.
William had a series of girlfriends
and they were all good-looking
'because he was a good-looking lad
in his youth, you know.'
Probably still is.
Sunday lunch, lovely day.
The crescent is a gorgeous crescent.
I was surprised
that it was such a lovely place to live.
'A lot of alcohol drunk,
a lot of alcohol.
'And we all got quite drunk.'
I remember her not drinking much.
Maybe a couple of glasses of wine
and that was usually enough for her.
She got a little bit silly on more.
I don't know if Joyce or William
went off to the loo or something.
'She was quite a head-turner.
Just very beautiful
and very unusual to look at.
I just thought, "Oh, blooming cheek!
"I'm inviting him up here
and he wants to snog her."
'I reckon I was a bit...
well, very jealous, shall we say,
'and well pissed off.'
I was shouting and he said, "Hit me.
"I realise I've done wrong. Hit me."
So I did, well and truly.
'My hand really did hurt.'
And I didn't realise
I'd hurt him a lot as well,
which I'm not exactly proud of.
And that was probably
the last time I saw her.
I don't think
Martin was going out with her then.
"The following morning my face
was all swollen up and misshaped.
"My work colleagues were surprised
that little Martin,
whom some of them had met,
had done it."
Oh, dear.
Dear oh dear. Terrible, isn't it?
And now we do the spice.
'I think they split up
a couple of times maybe.
'But I don't know the reasons
why they split up. I've no idea.
'He wasn't particularly happy
that they had.
'But I got the impression
it was from his end rather than hers. '
I can't remember any specific day,
when we said, "Well, that's it."
It just sort of drifted apart really.
I think maybe he'd have liked it
to have worked properly.
I don't know why it didn't.
We never discussed it.
'I do remember some occasions
of some black people saying,
'"What are you doing
going out with a white honky?"'
She never went out
with black guys that I knew of
but I couldn't tell you
who she actually went out with.
Her interest was normally
in kind of office types,
sort of English guys.
Martin was the only one I met
and he wasn't what
I would have expected for Joyce.
'I would have expected somebody
taller, slimmer, really handsome.
'But then she was always
within this black-white...
"'Should he black?
Should he be white?"'
We used to be amused,
Catherine and I.
We used to joke with her
that she should get a black one.'
It was always,
'What you need is a good black man.
"You just haven't found the right one."
I used to tell her,
"You've had a lot of boyfriends.
"Now you've finally got a man."
# I just wanna
# I wanna spend some time with you #
'Alistair used to chase Joyce
at the beginning in the early days.'
When he first met her,
he saw this woman
and he thought,
'Wow, that is a babe of note!"
We slept together for almost a month
and I didn't touch her.
I wasn't going to make the first move.
But he chased and chased and chased.
Alistair's one of those tenacious types.
And I remember afterwards
she told me
she'd said to one of her friends,
"Do you think he's gay?"
# I just wanna
# I wanna spend some time with you #
'The first time I met Joyce
was late 1989
'at a club called Xenon.'
'Xenon was
a very popular watering hole for us
'where we used to club a lot.'
Daily basis.
You know how pop stars...
I was a kind of pop star in those days.
'I used to go to a lot of clubs because
I was trying to promote my music.'
So when I walked in the club
the DJ said,
"We have Alton Edwards in the house."
On goes the song.
And I'd phone him up and say,
"I'm coming down to the club
with 10 or 20 people."
And when my friends arrived,
"I'm with Alton Edwards."
'Alistair was a music manager.
'In those days
he used to manage Osibisa.
'It was an African group.
'And he used to manage people
like Isaac Hayes, Gil Scott-Heron.
'You know, some big names.'
I had an artist, Betty Wright,
who I worked with.
'I remember Betty and her
were very close. Betty liked her.
'She thought Joyce was so beautiful
and such a down-to-earth, soft person
'and she loved her.'
Joyce needed somebody
to care for her.
We were living together
about a year and a half.
'But it was a very intense time.
'It seemed more like ten years.
'We did everything together
'and she totally became
enveloped and embroiled in my life.'
Joyce was my friend,
my lover, my partner,
my...
everything.
'We spent
a lot of wonderful times together.
'One time Jimmy Cliff came
and spent a weekend with us.
'Another time Gil Scott-Heron
had come over for dinner.
And she turned round
and she said to Gil,
"What's your definition of a pessimist?"
Gil's eyes brightened up, a wry smile
creased his face and he said,
"A pessimist is a guy
who's in possession of the full facts."
'But one of the funniest things was,
'I came home one day and
she was chatting away on the phone.
'It turned out it was Isaac Hayes.
They had this chat for 45 minutes
as though they were the best of friends.'
'What do you want to talk to me for?
"You seem to be getting on
very well with Joyce."
He said, "Yeah, I wonder
why I want to talk to you."
'She didn't really have
her own interests.
'It seems like
when she went out with someone,
'she got into their life
and shared their interests.'
So when she went out with someone
she sort of became part of that person.
Joyce was like a chameleon
in many ways,
because she just seemed to adapt
her whole life to mine.
'She had no great ambitions,
no great drives, no great plans.
'She wasn't a person with a past.'
And she certainly wasn't
a person with a future.
# If you should see me
# And I'm smiling
# Don't think my smile is for real
# No expression could explain
# How much my heart's in pain
# Since you left me
# Here's how I feel
# My smile is just a frown
# Turned upside-down
# Just a frown
# Turned upside-down
# Yeah
# But each time when I'm in love
# Teardrops start to fall
# My tears erase the lie
that's on my face
# Cos it's really not a smile
# At all
# My smile is just a frown
# Yeah
# Turned upside-down
# Yeah, yeah
# Just a frown
# Turned upside-down
# Oh-oh oh-oh
# And if by chance
# You hear me laughing
# I only laugh to fool the crowd
# Just like Pagliacci did
# I'll keep my sadness hid
# And true to this I laugh out loud
# My smile is just a frown
# Yeah
# Turned upside-down
# I may look happy when I smile
# But really all the while
# My smile is just a frown
# Yeah, yeah
# Turned upside-down up
# I may appear to have a grin
# But really deep within
# My smile is just a frown
# Turned upside-down #
Blimey.
I wish I had the courage.
- Yeah.
'She had a lot of ambitions.
She wanted to do so many things.
And meeting Alistair, I think,
was kind of like a stepping stone.
'He was her vessel
'to get to different people or places.
'I didn't think
she was into the race thing.
'I don't think
she was into black or white.
I think she just wanted to get places.
When we went along
to the Mandela show,
'she was very excited
at being there.'
But I don't think that would have been
something that was highlighted.
"Ooh, this is the black movement
in South Africa."
'Political change
and all that kind of thing.
'But Mandela is a figure.'
'I really wanted to meet him
and I was off
'having a conversation with somebody.
'She came running up to me
and threw her arms me and said,
"You'll never guess who I just met."
I said, "Who?"
I'm looking around and there's
Denzel Washington and Anita Baker
and Patti LaBelle
and all of these wonderful artists.
And she said, "I met Mandela."
I said, "What?
"'The one person I want to meet
and you got to meet him."
'She just happened to be
in the room when he came in.
'And I just thought to myself,
"How cruel life is."'
"I've been wanting
to meet this man all my life
"and Joyce got to meet him."
'It would have been the same
if she met, say, Princess Diana.
'It wouldn't have been their blackness.
'It wouldn't have been the colour aspect
'more than the person.
That's why every time I think of Joyce
and I think about how she died,
or how she was found should I say,
it just boggles my brain.
How did she get herself
into that situation?
She was far too positive a person
to go down that route.
But then you don't really know people.
Joyce died alone
because she wanted to be alone.
I know people will turn around and say,
'Well, what happened
to her friends and family and so on?"
But I think she's probably got
to take responsibility for a lot of that.
No!
Stop!
# Soon I will be done
# Trouble of the world
# Trouble of the world
# Trouble of the world
# Soon I will be done
# Trouble of the world
# Going home
# To live
# With God #
Mother died in the operation.
Do you hear?
Your mother.
She's gone.
'I think the death of her mother
had a profound effect upon her.'
I remember the story she told me
of how her father just broke the news
to them matter-of-factly.
"Oh, by the way, your mother died."
'How she coped I don't know.
'You would just break into pieces.
My mum went to the operation.
'But she coped.
She came to school.
'She told us all about it.
'Just couldn't understand it.
'Even at that age
you're too young to understand it.'
She died.
'I think that was something
that was central to her life. Very sad.
'She always gave me the impression
that she was looking for a father figure.
'She was looking
for that mature person in her life
'who might give her what
she perhaps didn't get from her father.'
Now, I got the impression
that her dad had died.
'I seem to remember her being off
for a period of time on sick leave.
'I am 100% sure
that is what we were told had happened.
'Her dad had died and she'd been off
for a short while because of it.'
And he died in May 2004.
So he died after her!
It's very mysterious.
That's strange.
'She must have had a reason
'and it must have been
a good reason.
'Because she didn't strike me as
somebody that was a compulsive liar.
'So if she's told that lie,
she's had a good reason to do it.
'Everyone has their secrets.
She just had more than most.
'I don't think she'd
grown-up emotionally.
'She wasn't allowed to develop.
'Being brought up by her sisters,
not having a relationship with her father,
'I think in many ways
emotionally she was retarded.'
'She'd say,
"If my sister calls, I'm not in."
'And she'd just roll her eyes like,
"Oh, here we go again. Nagging."
'I did wonder why.
Why would you not talk to your sisters?
'You'd think about it for a little while
and then not let it bother you.
'But every now and again
you thought, 'Why is that?
"'Why would she not keep
in contact with your family?"'
'It's hard to imagine
Joyce not having any contact
'with her sisters' kids.
'Because she did love them.
She really did.
For her to cut herself off from them
just doesn't sound like Joyce.
'As far as her sisters are concerned,
'if she'd fallen out with them
and ended her relationship with them,
'there was nothing they could do.'
'She didn't strike me
as being maternal.
'She was never broody that way
towards her nieces and nephews.'
'Although everything about Joyce
was all very superficial,
'in that she never really liked
to let people in.
'You never ever knew
that she had a problem in her life.
'The moment
something wasn't right
'she'd just up sticks and move.
'The times she moved in London,
and I was always helping her move.
'The familiar black bin liners
with all her stuff in.'
'Her life was virtually one suitcase.
'No pictures,
very few memories, no music.
'She seemed
to lead this nomadic existence.'
'I was aware later on
that she'd walked out of several jobs.
'And you'd ask why
and she'd never really give a reason
other than she got a bit of hassle
from someone at work.
We kind of rescued her
from the clutches of a colleague.
'He was quite determined
that he was going go home with her.
'I think because Joyce had had a few,
'her resistance may have been
a little bit lower than normal.'
She made it quite clear that
she wanted to go home on her own,
so me and Kim made it our duty
to make sure that she got in a cab.
She said,
"Oh, someone was pestering me".
'I said, "What, in a sexual sort of way?"
And she said, "Yes."
'And then,
rather than confront the problem,
'she would just walk out of the job.'
That's a strange way
of dealing with things,
to not really confront them.
Hi, John.
'She had some trauma
with the relationship she was in
'and turned up at my house.
'I don't remember if she came
with a bag, a bin liner or what.
'It was like I wanted to help her
and I wanted to find out a bit more.
I don't know if I wanted to know more
because I wanted a relationship with her.
That's partly true.
'I don't know the arrangement
'but she was staying
up at John's place.'
There were things
that used to make her uncomfortable.
Talking about sex
made her feel uncomfortable.
I think he probably thought
she fancied him as well,
knowing him.
After a while she started
to feel comfortable around me,
and she'd be walking around
in her underwear, which was just...
I mean, she was gorgeous
and you don't want some girl you fancy
walking around your house in underwear.
'Over the few weeks before she left,
there was a tension developing.
'Maybe men and women
see things differently.'
But I saw it
as some sort of sexual tension.
There were times when I thought,
"Shall I, shan't I?"
I'm sure there were occasions when
I may have been able to take advantage.
I think I may have been able
to take advantage.
She gave that impression.
Although I never did
and it never happened.
And then it got to the point where...
There was one day when it was
just becoming very uncomfortable.
I came home and she was gone
and it was a relief to find she'd gone.
'Part of me wonders
whether there was sadness in her life.
'Obviously something wasn't right.'
'It did cross my mind that
something happened in her childhood
'that affected her.'
One of the things I thought,
initially, and it came back to mind,
was that maybe she was abused.
'She was almost the perfect example
'of someone
that was interfered with as a child.
'You think stuff like that
because of the way she was.'
I often wondered if that was contributing
to her character of secrecy.
Or maybe she...
I was going to say she didn't trust people,
but then, she did trust people.
That was one thing.
She did trust people.
Maybe she was over-trusting.
Maybe she got...
Later on, maybe she was not so trusting.
It's a funny contradiction.
Does she trust people
and then she doesn't tell people?
She kind of made relationships
but to a certain point.
Because of maybe a trust issue.
She didn't trust.
She had a problem trusting people.
'It was said at the inquest
'that she had been linked
into a battered woman's organisation.'
It was never settled satisfactorily
'whether or not
she had been an abused woman.
'I think it's fair to say
she'd been in an abusive relationship.
'I thought someone might have been
looking out for her because of that.
'But she'd sort of moved
out of that system.'
'I think that when
Joyce was in the women's refuge
'she was probably ashamed.
The domestic violence
doesn't surprise me.
'Guys were just so focussed
and so possessive with her.
'That bit just didn't surprise me at all.'
There was no evidence of it
when we lived together.
There was nothing to say...
She never said anything
about any other boyfriends
being physical with her.
It was just the emotional intensity.
She seemed to make
all the wrong choices with men,
which is sad really, very sad.
It's sad that men could treat her badly
because she didn't deserve it.
She wasn't that type of person.
I feel quite sad
that maybe she didn't feel
that she could share that with people
that did really care about her
and I think genuinely
would have helped her.
'She was always reticent
and reluctant to talk about her past.'
'You get to know people
that tend to keep going back
'to people that are violent.
'They often had violent backgrounds
so they see that as normal.'
And if you're nice to them,
they can't handle it. They don't like it.
My only theory is that if she was
with a guy who used to beat her,
perhaps he isolated her
from the family.
Because that's a classic thing to do
for anyone who is a bully,
get them away
from their nearest and dearest.
And then they've got total control.
'I felt very upset
that anyone could be horrible
'to someone who's so gentle,
'someone who, as I said, hasn't got
a shred of nastiness about them.
And then...
for some guy to...
...well, take advantage
of her niceness, if you like,
and just be horrible to her...
She was the least deserving person
of that sort of treatment.
We've all made
stupid choices in our lives,
'but hers were tragic.
Why did she gravitate to bad people?
Because she was a very bright girl.
She was a very bright girl.
'I'd like to know
what her problem was.'
And I'd like to think that the people
that caused her that problem
will get their comeuppance as well.
This is BBC1.
And now the ten o'clock news.
'She was obviously
in a difficult relationship.
'They had come to a point
where they couldn't live together
'but they couldn't move out.'
They almost divided the house up.
- Yeah.
'I didn't know much about them
other than she had to escape from them.
'I don't know if it was the same person
or a load of different people.'
Although two of them
were probably serious enough
for her to need to disappear.
'And the last one certainly was,
whoever he was.
'I think he should be...
'absolutely ashamed of himself
if he's still around
'to make a girl disappear.'
'The last time I saw her
was up the West End somewhere.'
I was walking down this street
and she was coming towards me,
so I stopped and said, "Joyce!"
She looked at me
and put her head down
and kind of just scurried along.
She picked up speed.
I was like, "Joyce!"
'She just carried on
so I thought, 'Hm, OK
"if that's what you want."
That would have been around 2001.
'They said she died
around December 2003.
'She left the company in March '01.
'It makes you wonder what was going on
when she was working with us.
'Who was she seeing?
What sort of person was he?'
And whether that had anything
to do with her leaving.
She was hiding from somebody.
- Yeah.
'She gave this impression
at work and when we socialised
that she was a happy, bubbly person.
But it makes you wonder
what was actually going on.
'She decided she was going
to go travelling or move on.
'She worked there for four years.'
And they were sorry to see her go.
She had a lovely leaving do
and everybody wished her well.
'I have spoken to somebody
that still actually works there
'and she quite clearly remembers
Joyce telling her
'that she had been head-hunted
by another company.'
'There do seem
to be a lot of conflicting stories
'about what she did when she left.'
'But her boss
definitely is 100% sure
'that she was going travelling
with this group of 20 people.
'And I like to think
that that's what she did.'
If you think about it,
it's like we just accepted
that we never heard from her again.
And there's...
I don't know, there's a part of me
that feels a little bit
uncomfortable about that.
Because you like to think
that you keep in touch with people,
or you make the effort.
And I really just don't understand
what happened here.
'I got this call one day.
It just came out of the blue.
'And I heard this voice say, "Al?"
'I recognised the voice
but I was shocked.
'I hadn't expected to hear from her.
And she said, "It's Joyce."'
A whole kaleidoscope of emotions
went coursing through my brain.
'We met very close
to where she was working.
'What she said to me was
that she'd kind of regretted
'the fact
that we were no longer together.'
'She said that she'd realised
she'd made a mistake.'
That was the one time in her life
that she was truly happy.
'She said, "Would we be able
to pick up the pieces?"
And I just told her that
I didn't think that was possible.
I'd moved on.
I didn't want to... go back.
'That was the last time
I ever spoke to her.'
I think that's probably
the last thing she did say,
apart from, you know,
a kiss on the cheek and goodbye.
I know
it was August bank holiday 2001,
when she came to phone me up
in the middle of the night
and said, "Can I come over and stay,
just for a week or something?"
I said, "Yeah. Sure. "
'I asked her loads,
like, "Are you in trouble?
"'Has anyone bashed you around
or anything like that?
'And no, she was just...'
She said no.
Or did she? I don't know.
I can't remember.
'I met him for a drink
one evening and he said,
"Oh, yeah, Joyce is around."
'I said, "Blimey. How is she?"
and so forth.
'I think he said
she was staying on his couch.'
'She was short of money.
She had a laptop which she sold.
'She just wouldn't tell me
what was going on.
'August bank holiday came and went
'and I said,
"Oh, I thought you were going to go."'
Not that I was trying
to push her out or anything.
And she said, "Can I stay a bit longer?"
I said, "Yeah, no problem at all."
I think I asked him,
was he seeing her again?
He said, no,
she was just staying on the couch
and he was just helping her out.
It was one new year
and Martin phoned me up
and said, "Happy new year.
Someone here wants to talk to you."
And he handed the phone
over to Joyce.
It must have been into 2002
she was still there.
'I was getting a bit anxious as to
how long exactly she was going to stay.
'It ended up she was there
about six months in the end.'
He must have said to me
that he said to her,
"You have to go.
You can't stay on my couch anymore."
Which is fair enough.
It is a really small one-bedroom at.
'I even asked her
if she wanted to go out with me again.
'She said, "No, I don't want
to go back over old ground."'
But I knew in my heart that wasn't
the reason she was staying with me.
I feel really guilty now
because at that time
I was wrapped up
doing other stuff.
And I said, "Yeah,
I'll come and meet you."
And I had things happen
so I never did.
And month on month it went on.
"Maybe I should contact Martin
go and see Joyce."
And I never did.
She could have stayed longer
if she wanted to.
I just wanted her to sort herself out.
'He obviously feels bad
about that,
'That's probably
around the last time he saw her.'
She told me
she was working in the City,
but she didn't say where or doing what.
And when she went to work
'she didn't look her well turned out,
highly polished style.
'Her character seemed really different.
I think she was trying to be the same.
'But you could tell there was something
that she wasn't talking about.'
'I took the day off one day
and she went, apparently, out to work.
'And then I went
to Shepherd's Bush Green.
'And she probably thought
I'd gone to work
'cos she was coming back
across the pedestrian crossing.
'And I was going, "I thought
you'd gone to work, Joyce."'
I'm not feeling very well, Martin.
I thought, "You're not going to work.
You haven't got a job.
"She hasn't told me."
'I think my offers of help
just turned into pressure on her, really.
'There was clearly something going on.'
And I just remember coming back
one day and she'd just gone.
Joyce. Joyce, just breathe easily.
'I think of her constantly.
Constantly.'
And I just...
In fact, I sometimes lie in bed
talking to myself
as if I'm talking to her,
you know, talking out loud.
Yeah, I think about her a lot, really.
Just holding her, actually.
Holding her.
Just breathe easily.
I've spoken to people and they've said,
"That was the love of your life."
And I think they're right, definitely.
Yeah.
'She went in for a peptic ulcer,
which wasn't long before she died.
'She put her next of kin
as her bank manager.'
Is that right?
- Yeah.
She was that removed,
I think, at that point.
Gosh. That's incredible.
- Yeah.
Oh.
Oh, how sad. Yeah.
That's sad,
cos obviously you've got family
and you don't know what's happened.
But surely there's got to be a friend
more than your bank manager.
Oh, my God.
That really sums it up, doesn't it?
'A letter turned up for her.
'I thought maybe it would give me a clue
as to where she was living or something,
'so I just opened it in the end.'
It was a wages slip for a cleaning job.
So I was really hurt when I saw that.
'She wasn't working in the City at all.
She was doing some cleaning job.
'That's why she didn't look polished
in her usual attire.
I thought,
"She didn't want me to know
where she was going,
what she was doing."
Again harbouring those secrets,
which I found a bit heart-breaking,
to tell you the truth.
'Really? A cleaner?
No, doesn't...
I mean... I don't know.
I'm just trying to picture her doing
that sort of work and I just can't do it,
knowing the sort of person she was.
I suppose I'm trying to picture her
doing it all dolled up
and immaculately dressed
with her hair and...
With a tight sort of skirt on.
- Pushing an umbrella.
Not an umbrella.
A Hoover around.
- An umbrella!
She didn't know
what life she wanted and the thing is,
the life that she should have had
was staring her in the face all the time.
'I think she wanted
to settle down.
'That was very much the thing
of the crowd that we were in.
'You get married by the time
you're 25, 26, so you have babies.'
With this ring I wed.
'That's the reason
for getting married, to have children.'
'She asked me to once.'
And I thought
maybe she meant like straight away.
And I said, "Oh, no, no, no."
'When you're in your 20s
you don't think about these things.
'The thought of getting married and
having children is off-putting
'when you can go out and have
a few beers and have a good time
'and you've got no responsibilities.'
He said to me once...
When I said, 'Well,
why don't you marry Joyce?
'Why don't you get engaged?"
And he says, "It would be unfair.
"We'd have tinted children.
I don't want tinted children."
He didn't mean that in a racist way.
At the time
there was a lot of racism around
and half-caste kids get
the worst of it, don't they?
My dad said something like,
I saw Martin coming off the train
with a young lady.
"Is she black or something?"
That made me laugh.
When Martin's father died
a few years back
maybe then he started thinking
"Well, I should have done."
Because he wasn't there
to pass judgment, you know.
Maybe that was one of the things
he was thinking.
But you can always think
you could have done things differently.
If she had married Alistair,
I think that he would have made her
a good husband.
Whether she would have made him
a good wife is another story.
But he loved her, desperately.
'I did love her, intensely,
and I think she loved me very deeply.
'And therein lay the problem.
'I don't think she thought
she was capable of loving.
'I don't think she thought
she was capable of being happy.'
Maybe it was just too good for her
in the sense that...
"I want this but is it really me?"
I think she was afraid to...
...live the dream.
'She always believed
'that something would come
and mess it up.
'There'd always be somebody there
to burst the bubble.
'And I kept saying to her,
"'Just enjoy it, just look at the light
shining on that bubble.
The wonderful colours
that are thrown up.
"'Deal with that first and when it bursts,
then deal with that."
'That was part of her problem.
'She had demons that haunted her.'
OK.
'It's really strange.
It's like she never really existed,
'She was a figment of our imagination
and she was a story.
'It was like someone
that we all just made up,
'partly because we let someone
disappear off and die.'
Someone we all knew
and thought we cared about.
If you laid it out in a book form,
you'd be thinking,
"This has got to be fiction."
But this is real life.
The debate about living
in dislocated societies,
not having communities any more,
it's been banging on for ages
and it's just been a sort of theory.
And this is like the living reality of it.
I often thought
about what she was doing
and most of the time I actually thought
that she was already dead.
We all have to think
about how we live our lives a bit more
and stop this crazy existence where
we don't have time for friends or family.
We only have time
to go shopping, ironically.
Wood Green Shopping City!
Even in this 21st century,
you still can fall through the cracks.
She may change the way people think
in a very tiny way.
You know,
"I'll go and check my neighbour."
Or, "Maybe I haven't seen
my friend for a year.
"I'm going to go
and get in contact with them."
So I think
that's what she'll leave behind.
Everybody I've spoken to from then,
they're like,
"Joyce? You're kidding!"
The only person
I think may have been...
One of the closest people in her life
was probably Martin.
I still wish...
I still wish that
they'd got together and married.
Because she'd still be here.
I'm sure she'd still be here.
I wish you'd rung me.
Cos I would have helped
cos I love you.
And this is his 13th century
common discovery,
which I think is a pretty good record.
# Watch me fall from grace
# Disappear with no trace
# As I try to erase you
# Feel the pain and watch me bleed
# Surely this is not what I need
# Shut out everyone
# And watch me run
# Lay me under the sun
# So cold I have become
# Now that I have been undone
# Watch me fall from grace
# Disappear with no trace
# As I try to erase you
# Feel the pain and watch me bleed
# Surely this is not what I need #
Now we,
as people of South Africa,
respect each and every one of you.
We admire you.
And above all we love you.
# Oh, won't you tell me
# Won't you tell me
# Oh, won't you tell me
# Tell me now
# Oh, I need you to tell me
# I want you to tell me
# Tell me, tell me, tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me now
# Tell me
# Tell me, tell me, tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me, tell me, tell me
# Yeah, yeah, yeah
# Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me now
# Ooh, ooh, ooh
# Yeah, yeah, yeah
# Speak to me and tell me now
# Tell me
# Yeah
# Ooh, ooh, oh, oh, ohh
# Tell me, tell me
# Oh, yeah
# Oh, won't you tell me
# Oh, tell me
# Won't you tell me
# Yeah, yeah... ##
stories, others not so good.
When the story of Joyce
was brought back to the office,
I think there was
a stunned silence for a minute.
I don't think anyone had really heard
a story like that before.
Reporters always get asked,
"What's the best story you've done?"
Or the strongest story
or the worst story or whatever.
And this is my like clutch of ones
that you would remember
through a lifetime.
'You wanted to write it
and tell other people.
'That's that's the power of it, really.
'Ali said to me, "You go down
to the inquest and cover it."'
'We knew pretty quickly
that it was out of the ordinary.
'I worked at the paper for ten years
and there wasn't a story like it.
'There was such a remarkable lack
of information about Joyce Vincent.
'It was so hard
to find anything about her.'
Miss Vincent?
Miss Vincent,
we've a repossession order!
'It always struck me as strange
'how there's just swarms of thousands
of people going around their business,
'getting their shopping,
meeting their friends
'and all this time
there was a woman in the ats above
and nobody knew that she was there.
Trying to let her know
there's somebody at the door.
We've a repossession order!
'You really wanted
to find out more about this woman.'
It was a story that everyone wanted
but no one could get.
# Watch me fall from grace
# Disappear with no trace
# As I try to erase you
# Feel the pain and watch me bleed
# Surely this is not what I need #
Hello, it's Carol here, Carol Morley,
phoning about Joyce.
I'll try your mobile.
I'll try you again. Bye.
I'm looking for any infomation,
no matter how minor,
about Joyce Vincent.
'I was sitting at home one day
and I don't know if you do this,
'you just put someone's name
into Google.
'And I don't know what made me do it.
I just put Joyce's name in.
There was loads of links
to all these news stories.
I thought, "Ooh, that's a coincidence.
Someone else with Joyce's name."
'Then I scrolled down
and I saw your advert
'and I thought, "Oh, crikey.
It must be the same person."'
I got your email on Friends Reunited
asking, "Did I know Joyce Vincent?"
And straight away it was just
hairs up on the back of my neck, arms
and it was quite a shock, actually.
When you called I was at work
and I'd had a couple of missed calls,
anonymous calls,
and I thought they were my mum,
so I was just ignoring them.
Then I thought, "That's the fourth call.
I'd better take this one."
And the line broke a little bit,
so I was thinking,
"Did she just say Joyce is dead?"
Lots of people I've met
that knew her read the story
and didn't realise it was Joyce.
Really?
- They couldn't...
They didn't identify the victim - dead,
lonely, sad - with the Joyce they knew?
No.
- Isn't that interesting?
'It's even more interesting then.'
I was just amazed that
we'd not heard this from anybody
or nobody had realised.
How did they not know
from the electricity bills?
'I wrote to the utilities because I thought,
'normally if you don't pay your bill,
you get cut-off.
'I wrote to the local authority
because I thought,
"'Well, she must have had
council tax to pay."
'They sort of didn't want to know.
'They washed their hands of it.
"Nothing to do with us."'
- 'I found friends...'
- 'How did you find them?'
Because the police couldn't
and the authorities couldn't?
So how did you? Clever girl.
I mean, you'd like to think
that everyone's got someone
who would kind of look out for them.
'And it just seemed remarkable,
'given all the information
we had about Joyce,
'although it was quite limited,
'it just seemed strange
and highly unusual
'that there was no one there for her.'
It's just tragic.
You know, and the fact
that she was left all alone.
They said it's 2003
when she died, yeah?
And then this is '06. Wow!
"Probably died of natural causes."
"The only way she could be identified
"was by comparing dental records
"with a holiday photo of her smiling."
WOW!
Flies and a smell and nobody noticed.
"Skeleton of Joyce
found on the sofa with telly still on."
There's not even a picture
of her in there.
It's surprising they didn't put
a photo of her in the paper
because that would be one reason
to have the article in there.
There was nothing there
that would give it away.
You know, just the name Joyce,
"skeleton of Joyce".
I mean, that could be anyone.
Her bed-sit looks like a hovel as well,
doesn't it?
Have you been to the bed-sit?
Is it as shitty as it looks?
It's bad enough reaching 40,
let alone being 40 and alone.
It's awful, shocking!
It was so horrendous, you know,
that she was left,
found in front of her television
that was still on for so many years,
and nobody knows this.
Yeah, just gained access.
No, it's horrible. It's annoying.
Can't believe it.
Just to be sad and...
I think it was an MP
who was absolutely disgusted
about the fact that we could just allow
someone to disappear off the radar.
I don't know what in the end
caused her to die alone in her at.
She wasn't alcoholic, she didn't smoke,
she didn't take drugs.
I don't know what made her
the Joyce Vincent that I knew
and I don't know what took her
to the Joyce Vincent that died.
I remember the story.
I heard it on the news.
I remember the whole thing.
Didn't recognise it as her.
I think that was
the terribly sad thing, really.
That, you know,
no one had reported her missing.
Worst of all, her family
hadn't reported her missing.
Four sisters!
Four sisters!
I don't know why
I'm always stuck on that significance
of three years
and nobody's come looking for you.
But it is that. I reckon
that says a lot for the beginning.
Some of the details
that oated around early on
were mysterious.
'"Ms Vincent's local MP
and members of her family said
"they want a full investigation
into how she died."'
The trouble with this is
that there was no...
You can't establish the cause of death
without a body.
I think somebody killed her.
It's a body melting into the carpet,
basically.
That's... That's just... It's grim.
There's nothing there for us now,
just a fair old mark on the carpet.
Oh, my God.
I think she was murdered, you know.
It's too clean cut.
If it's wet and if it's not yours,
you can't take any risks.
'The police said
there was nothing suspicious,
'but unless you knew what happened,
you will always think
'there's a possibility
of some kind of foul play in there.'
'It does seem strange,
everything about it.
'She was in that at.
Nobody kind of questioned it.
'An inquest last week
returned an open verdict
'but heard that a police investigation had
ruled out any suspicious circumstances.'
'It's one of those inquests
where it's difficult to find answers,
'which is immediately frustrating.
'You have this mystery that's thrown up
and you just want to know more.'
With all this DNA stuff,
testing and what have you,
I'm sure they can find some way
of finding out what really happened.
I think there's more to it
than meets the eye.
You'd probably never find out
the true story of it.
It'd be another JFK all the way.
'I was working late one evening.'
I was friendly with her
and she came round and said,
"Do you want to go out for a drink?"
And I said, "Yeah, all right, then."
Didn't really read anything into it.
She seemed very fond of him
but they were a very unlikely pairing.
Very unlikely.
I had no idea
she was attracted to me at all.
And...
And then I actually developed,
you know, a love for her.
'And one day I said,
'Would you like to go to this hunt ball?"
'She seemed a bit hesitant at first
and I thought, 'Well, that's strange.
"'I thought she was attracted to me."
'I think it was something to do
with leaving the confines of London
'where she was quite happy.'
I think Martin rolled in in his car
that he'd completely written off
on the way down.
It was just...
He had a little cut on his head.
And she turned up
later than everybody else
wearing this dress,
this sort of powder-blue rubber dress.
The one moment that will stick
in everybody's mind
was the first time everybody saw her
when Martin brought her out.
"I'm bringing this girl I work with."
We'd heard about her.
She turns up,
she's got a spray-on dress.
And you go, "You jammy bastard."
# If you should see me
# And I'm smiling
# Don't think my smile
# Is for real #
'Martin will kill me for saying this,
'but we were all a bit shocked
'that Martin was going out
with someone quite so stunning.'
'I was astounded.
Absolutely astounded.
We couldn't believe he could end up
with somebody like that.
'But no, she was lovely
and she quite clearly adored him.'
'I was really chuffed
to go out with her.'
I know everyone liked her,
you know.
More than just liked. Fancied her.
'It's an ego trip, isn't it
for any bloke
'if they've got an attractive girlfriend
that everyone else likes.'
'Petite and yet, you know,
a good figure.'
Small feet, I should imagine.
'Great hair, lovely eyes,
'well manicured hands.
'Yeah, pleasing.'
'Maybe my heart
was autter as well.
'I secretly fancied her,
like we all did.
'She was lovely.
Some people are like that.
'Some people are annoyingly happy.'
And other people are just nicely happy.
When you talk to them, they lift you.
'I just can't imagine her
dying alone.
'It was kind of prophetic because
she always felt that she would.'
'It might have been the asthma,
that she could have passed like that.'
'She might have been happy to pass.
Maybe she weren't happy with her life.'
'If you get really bad asthma
you can't move.
'She wasn't terribly good
at taking those Ventolin puffers,
'which she really should
have been doing more often.'
'She used to get pains.
'One night she collapsed.
She was in a lot of pain.
'She had some serious abdominal pain.
'She had ulcers at the time
and didn't know.'
'I was wondering
whether that was stress-related
considering where she was.
'She might have wanted
to just cease to exist from people.
She might be embarrassed
of where she was living.
'She might have wanted
to just be left alone.
'She might not have wanted
to contact her family.'
'She was always
the centre of attraction.
'People would always
gravitate towards her.
'She was like a magnet.'
'She looked like she'd had a good
education from the way she spoke.'
I don't know
what kind of education she had.
'I'd have thought
she was educated at a nice school,
'a sort of colonial school.'
'It was just a nice school,
pleasant to go to, pleasant people.'
It was just friendly, playing.
Happy times for everybody.
Whether the weather be cold,
whether the weather be hot,
we'll be together,
whatever the weather,
whether we like it or not.
'Joyce's mother
had elocution lessons for her
'and she had quite a posh voice, really.
'I think when people met her,
they were a little bit taken aback.'
'I just suddenly started
to hear her voice.'
And the sound of it,
cos I'd actually forgotten.
Very soft.
Very clear, well spoken.
'Not common.'
'But not sort of posh.
It was just nice.'
'They taught her to walk,
taught her to speak.
'Everything was very nice
but not in a kind of contrived way.
'You didn't feel like
she was putting it on.'
She was relaxed in that position,
but she was very comfortable.
And she was striking in that way.
She definitely wanted
something more out of life,
whether it was to be somebody
or to have somebody.
I would imagine
she was coming from somewhere,
trying to get to somewhere.
The best way she knew how is,
"I need to look good.
"I have my features.
I have my brains."
Joyce never let on how clever she was.
'I think she was a very bright girl,
but she just played it down.'
'French, grade three.'
Nature studies, grade five.
Social studies, grade four.
Grade E... So she didn't have
any GCSEs or A-levels?
She gave the impression
she was very well educated, yeah.
I'm not saying that
I had great conversations with her
about, you know,
what the meaning of life is
or anything like that.
'I always put her
in the same class as the rest of us,
'which is, what, middle class.
'She kept up with the rest of us
'which is why no one ever suspected
she was any different to the rest of us.'
And Maths ungraded as well.
Maths is ungraded as well, yeah.
That's quite amazing.
- Considering the area of work.
I mean, that is quite
something else really.
'Maybe she wasn't good at exams.
'She never came across as somebody
that was not academically clever.'
I think she said
she was something in finance
and I just kind of thought,
"Oh, I thought you were a secretary."
'She had a really responsible job.'
'Well, she worked
in the treasury department
'so she was involved with moving
the company's money around, really,
'and just putting money out on deals.'
We're not just talking
small amounts.
We're talking about millions of pounds.'
She wasn't throwing money around.
'I mean, she liked to go out
and have a meal, buy a few clothes.
'Nothing spectacular.
'I can't ever remember her
spending money on a holiday.'
'She was very independent.
'Didn't rely on men.
'I know a lot of women
who just make a living off that.'
She just reminded me
of somebody that...
I suppose somebody
that I would like to be, almost.
Because I can be a bit scatty
in my dressing and getting myself ready
and everything about her
was just immaculate.
'Obviously she used to get
a lot of male attention.
'Because she was a lovely person.
She was a bubbly person.
'She was a very well liked person.'
I've got a really kind of special memory
of her at the Christmas party,
'She wore this most beautiful dress.'
'She was always well turned out.
She always turned quite a few heads.'
She did, yeah.
- Certainly at that party.
'Joyce being Joyce,
she'd had a couple of drinks.
'She was determined
she was going to have a go at this thing,
'whether she had
a 400 dress on or not.
And she tried to grab the sides.
And as she did that,
a kind of cleavage of boobs
popped out of her dress
and she was trying to hold on
to the side of this thing.
'She stood there for five or ten minutes
just laughing her head off.
'If I was wearing a dress like that,
I wouldn't go on one of them bungees.'
Everything revolved round
whoever she went out with
or whatever job she did.
'No lifetime friends
as far as I could see.'
'The thing that always stuck
in my mind was this bond
that her and Martin used to have.
He seemed to be her rock.
Whatever happened in her life,
'she always seemed
to come back to him.
'But I wonder what she did
when she wasn't seeing Martin.
'I know they didn't live together.'
Maybe Martin was her closest friend
and anyone Martin knew automatically
became her circle of friends.
'It was Martin who said,
"Oh, it's Joyce's 21st."
'And I said, "Oh, right. Great!"
'I actually remember
her 21st party
'in the place we can never remember
above The Beetroot.'
'I think it was called Moonlighting
in Dean Street.'
'It was a good evening.
'It was just that incident
of the police stripogram.'
'This guy turns up
and he was dressed as a vicar.
'Everyone was quite sober, really sober.
I think it was relatively early.
It didn't seem like it was a late night.
And everyone was just,
"Oh, my God. What is this guy doing?"
# Everybody needs cash to spend
# Everybody needs love and affection #
'It was just completely wrong
for him to be there.'
If you were drunk,
I'd imagine it would be hilarious,
but it just wasn't.
Anyway, he started ripping off...
He had Velcro on the back of his shirt
and he ripped off his top.
He had this really skinny, white body
with ginger hair. It was just awful.
Not that if he was a good-looking bloke,
it would have made any difference.
It was just like, "No, please stop.
Keep your clothes on. Don't do this."'
'Everybody was just
really embarrassed.'
# Go round the world again and again
# Meet a girl on a boat,
meet a boy on the train #
Then he had a bit of a fit
because someone threw
some clotted cream at him or something
and it hit him in the chest.
'And we were all like school kids
with this naked vicar telling us off.
'But it was just excruciatingly
embarrassing, really bad,
'I think Joyce was just horrified.'
Who threw that one?
That almost caught me in the eye!
That's it. I'm going.
'I don't know to this day
who organised it.'
Whether it was Martin.
He might have done, but it seems odd.
It doesn't seem
like the sort of thing he'd do.
Joyce told me a sister or sisters
had colluded to organise it.
'I don't remember
if her family was there.
I just seem to remember
it being the friends
she'd acquired through Martin, I think.
'I did say to Martin,
"That's odd, isn't it?
"'There's all your mates here
and it's Joyce's 21st."
'Maybe she had a real 21st
some other time
'and these were just like Martin's mates
just to keep them quiet.'
And maybe she had her real 21st
in another guise somewhere.
'Maybe she didn't want different groups
of friends to mix. I don't know.'
Loads of people asked me,
'Where's her family?
'Where are her sisters and her friends?
"It's all your friends."
And I said, "I don't know, really."
I just never met any of them
or her family.
'I thought it was extremely unusual.'
Good morning and welcome.
England world champion
rugby players will find themselves
in the biggest scrum
of their lives today,
when half a million fans turn out
for a victory parade.
# LA
# Is just too much for him
# So he's leaving the life
# We've come to know
# He's leaving
# On the midnight train to Georgia #
'Her mother was
from an Indian extraction,
'although she came
from the West Indies.
'I think her mother came
from quite a good background.
'She did mention something
about tea plantations.
She talked about her parents,
the fact that her mother was from India
and her father was from Grenada.
'I think her mother died
when Joyce was 11.
'I think her mother was about 41.
'Clearly, she was an influence on Joyce.
'A positive influence.'
'She had older sisters
'and her sisters took parental control
of her and brought her up.'
'Sometimes the youngest one
gets a bit more love lavished on them.
'Not deliberately.
It just happens, doesn't it?'
I always thought
she was well brought up
in a Caribbean style
of well brought up.
What we call brought upsy.
She had brought upsy, we call it.
She had that.
'She knew how to behave,
knew how to eat at the table.
"'Don't drain your cup and clean up
your plate like you've been starved."
'She had all the right things.'
'She talked about her dad
being a West Indian, working-class guy.'
'Her father was a carpenter.
I don't consider that working-class.
'That's a trade, you know.'
She used to refer to him as Pork Pie.
'She said he was
a typical West Indian man.
'He wore the pork pie hat and
he used to walk with a bit of a swagger.
'He used to go out with his suits on
'and chat up young girls
'and just basically think
he was still in his 20s and 30s.'
And she just kind of thought...
that as her father,
he should be a bit more grown-up.
I remember him always being in a suit,
a business type man.
Whether he worked away or something,
I don't know.
'She wasn't proud of her dad.
'I always thought
it was the working-class background
'she didn't want to own up to
or have any connection with.'
Families fall out.
They don't get on.
- I suppose so.
I never saw my brother for six years.
I mean, I think you get that in families.
Somebody must have said,
"Hey, we haven't heard from her
"for two months,
"six months,
"a year,
"Christmas.
'We're having Christmas dinner.
Where's Joyce?"
The real standout information,
the poignant side of this
was that when they found her body,
she was surrounded
by Christmas presents.
If she was wrapping Christmas presents,
how come no one knew?
'If I departed in my at
and that was it,
'apart from my family,
the landlord would be around.
'Someone would come looking.'
'And the neighbour.'
There were funny smells
coming into his house.
Why the hell didn't he inform the council?
'Why didn't they think,
"It's coming from next-door.
"'Let's kick the door in"'?'
'Somebody had tried
to knock on the door a couple of times.
'I think maybe the noise of the telly
had started to be noted.
'But they just thought
that she wasn't answering the door.'
'That's the depressing thing.
'You've got Saturday night TV,
Big Brother,
'all these people speaking at this corpse
and Ally Pally looking down over her at.
'It was very easy to lose touch
because she would just move.
'There can't be a point on the compass
in London where she hasn't lived.'
# Mr Magic
# Mr Magic
# For any love problem,
you just come to Kirk
# Cos I got the remedy
# And it always works
# One day this lady said
her man was such a bore
# That he made love
and her feel like a daily chore #
She came to Kirk's place to rent a room.
That's the first time I seen her,
when she moved in.
When people would call up
as I'm having to share a house,
'I would tell them, "I'm black."'
And she said,
"Yes, well I'm black, too."
I moved in April, May '88.
She would have moved in
about a month after that.
Well, she fitted in very good.
'My house was kind of
people in and out, musicians.'
'He had a studio
at the bottom of his garden.
He used to play the pan.
I used to love that sound.
'She told me Captain Sensible came
round to record something there.'
'She'd up dress
in a French maid's outfit.
'Black stockings and a garter.
The whole works.
Risqu.
That little French outfit she had on.
She looked nice in that.
'I didn't ask her.
She just suggested taking a day off work
'and being the maid for the day.'
'She was just happy-go-lucky.
We were just 24, 25.
'No responsibilities, no bills to pay.'
Just the rent.
There was nothing to be unhappy about.
'A lot of people that came to the house,
they did think that she was stuck-up
and that she didn't want to be black.
'She was trying
to be something that she wasn't.'
'Every time I'd visit my uncle,
just playing, she'd be there.'
She was a really pretty girl
and when I was little,
I used to say to her...
I used to ask if I could brush her hair.
'She was very comfortable
with my nieces and nephews.
I would have expected her
to have had children
because she did like children.
Don't know what I'm doing
but I'm just going like that.
I suppose she used to entertain me
because I was a little boy.
Seven, eight, nine...
'It was a really good time.
She was the perfect atmate.
'She was easy to get on with.
She was easy to live with.'
'And I said,
'Well, I don't really want
'to live with people
that I have to moan at.'
She was a bit untidy
in the bathroom.
The ring around the tub.
Yes, like a Saturn ring. Yeah.
Some days you'd be thinking
Joyce was nice
but, hey, that bathroom was in a state.
It was black
with that kind of dirt
that's stuck to the sides black.
I touched it and said, "My goodness!
I wouldn't step into
this with my ip-ops!"
She didn't do manual labour.
She just wasn't a hard worker.
She was lazy.
I'm thinking to myself,
"if she ever makes it,
she's going to have to get a maid.
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me #
Hi, my name's Joyce
and that's nice.
No way!
Is that her voice?
God.
It's quite chilling, isn't it?
But so playful as well.
Hi, my name's Joyce
and that's nice.
Well, that's extraordinary.
WOW!
Wow, that's like a blast from the past.
Yes, and that is Joyce.
Hi, my name's Joyce and that's nice.
Hi, I'm Joyce and that's nice.
She's putting a voice on.
That brings back
SO many memories NOW.
Hi, I'm Joyce and that's nice.
Where's that from?
Oh, yeah, these were some
of the people Kirk used to get
when he bought a nice studio.
He wanted a certain little sound
to come out.
Oh, I thought he had lost that tape
a long time ago.
Yeah, that was... That's her.
Flirtatious.
Sexy, wasn't she?
She was sexy.
The first time she says, "I'm Joyce,"
that sounds like her.
Not that beginning bit.
But as it got into it.
I know it's very short.
And then it sounds
like she's trying to be a bit more street,
but it doesn't really come across,
does it?
That is almost
a little bit unrecognisable
but the rest of it, you just catch
the essence of her voice there.
Hi, my name's Joyce and that's nice.
Hi, I'm Joyce and that's nice.
That's strange.
It doesn't sound like Joyce.
See, that's it!
It brings a person to life.
She's not...
She's not, you know...
You're not talking pathologists
any more, body uids,
stains on carpets or whatever,
all of that grim...
You're just talking about a human being
who's lived and sounds full of vibrancy.
WOW!
# Tell me
# Tell me #
'When we initially met,
she wanted to be a singer, so...
'I owned a recording studio. I arranged
for her to go along and do a session.'
But, as much as I loved her,
Joyce was not a singer.
I told her
she could mime in the background.
# No pain
# No gain
# No
# There was an old lady
sitting under a tree #
'Joyce had a very lovely voice.'
Very, even at a young age.
'You'd put her in
with Shirley Bassey, Donna Summer.'
'If you meet Whitney Houston
for example, you know this is a star.
You wouldn't have to see her on TV.
You just know.
If you meet Aretha Franklin,
you know this woman's a star somehow.
'Who are you?"
That certain something, Joyce had that.
Well, she had a very good voice.
# No pain #
There would be crowds,
girls and boys
dinner ladies,
whoever was out in the playground,
automatically
just crowding round Joyce
and just enjoying her entertaining you.
'But she wasn't a show-off.
'It was just something she enjoyed
and loved and was good at.'
'She wasn't afraid
of getting up and performing.
'And yet she was
very modest about it,
'because she didn't boast the fact.
"Oh, I can do this. I can do that."'
I'm not sure anybody...
...heard her sing or...
- No.
No.
# Sometimes owers mean
# Maybe we should just be friends
# You get my drift?
# Hang if you can hang
# No pain, no gain #
OK, that was great. I'm going
to come round and see you now.
'Thank you very much.'
That was Joyce Carol Vincent
singing to you live.
I used to say she's got the package.
She's a good singer,
she's an attractive girl.
Joyce Carol Vincent.
Boom.
Can I kiss you?
What?
A lot of people said
she looked like Whitney Houston.
I thought she was
more attractive than that.
Sorry!
- Sorry. I'm sorry about that.
I got carried away
by the way you were looking at me.
It was just...
It was just a song!
She did play me
a tape that she had done.
I remember being absolutely amazed
because it sounded fantastic.
# Everybody needs love and affection #
When she used to sing
around the house, I didn't like it.
'Maybe I've got a thing about people
just singing around the house.'
I think she did meet a few musos.
After I went out with her.
She had the Sade thing, you know,
with tight trousers, high waistband,
hair tied back.
Very exotic, beautiful.
Everybody fancied her, you know.
And Sade was huge at the time as well.
I think she got that quite a lot.
"You look like Sade."
# I'm the kind of girl
# I want that whole wide world
# Nothing more, nothing less
# I don't want second best #
'She was stunning.
'She was the sort of girl
most girls would probably be jealous of.
'But for fellas it was easy. As soon as
you looked at her, your jaw dropped.'
Because she was so friendly,
if we went to a nightclub or something
and I had to nip off to the loo,
you'd come out
and there's be inevitably
someone talking to her.
And she'd go,
"Oh, he's a very nice chap."
And I'd just go,
"Oh, my God. Here we go.
"'You don't understand."
'She just took them
as all being very friendly.'
'Underneath it all
I think she was a bit of a minx.
'I think she was a bit naughty.
You didn't see that much of it.
'But there were gaps in her personality
that you could see.
'She wasn't one of those people
'that made girls in a crowd
feel uncomfortable
'by irting with men.'
I think she was just very aware
of the fact that she was pretty.
She was full of life
and therefore attractive.
'She didn't need
to do any more than that.'
'I don't think there was
a man on earth that didn't turn his head.
She would attract attention
and just become the complete focus
and it was hard to get rid of men.
'They wouldn't take no for an answer.
'You just had to sit back
and watch it happen.'
'She was the kind of person
that you would imagine
'ending up with Jay-Z,
Quincy Jones, a big, big name.'
When I was going out with her,
she told me
that the drummer
in Culture Club had asked her out.
She said, "I said no."
'I said, "Oh, thanks!"
'You assumed that people
better looking and younger than you
'were having a better time.'
You'd just see someone and think,
"I'll bet they're out all the time,
having a great life."
'She was quite mysterious.
'She could drift in and out
of situations and friendships
'Not easily,
but she would just not be there.
'Sometimes you wouldn't see her
for six months.'
'I always got the feeling
she was a bit of a drifter.
We didn't see her all the time.'
'I remember once we were supposed
to go off to some dinner.
'And she said, "Oh, I can't go.
'She'd been out the night before.
'I thought she'd been out
with some other bloke, you know.
'But she said,
"Oh, no, it was nothing."'
I didn't fully believe it,
to tell you the truth.
'She was quite secretive.
I think she wasn't clear.
'She would say, "I'm off clubbing."
I don't think it was with Martin.
'So I'm not sure
who she was going with.'
'I don't think
he was seeing anybody else
'but they didn't seem
to spend their whole time together.
'You'd ask Martin
if he was going out with her.
'He wouldn't answer you directly
so you wouldn't really know.'
If you're in a close-knit bunch of friends,
things are bound to happen
because you're all of the same...
You have similar
tastes and interests
and that often extends to girls as well.
So if something happens,
something happens, doesn't it?
By Martin's own admission,
he's no oil painting.
'He's a nice bloke
but he's not the tallest of chaps.
'They were an odd couple.'
'William was
in Hemel Hempstead
and he'd split up with his girlfriend
'I said,
"Oh, it's no good moping around.
'Why don't you come up to London?"
"There'll be three girls there and me.
It will be a bit claustrophobic."
'I managed
to persuade him to come up.'
I think William did like her, yeah.
William had a series of girlfriends
and they were all good-looking
'because he was a good-looking lad
in his youth, you know.'
Probably still is.
Sunday lunch, lovely day.
The crescent is a gorgeous crescent.
I was surprised
that it was such a lovely place to live.
'A lot of alcohol drunk,
a lot of alcohol.
'And we all got quite drunk.'
I remember her not drinking much.
Maybe a couple of glasses of wine
and that was usually enough for her.
She got a little bit silly on more.
I don't know if Joyce or William
went off to the loo or something.
'She was quite a head-turner.
Just very beautiful
and very unusual to look at.
I just thought, "Oh, blooming cheek!
"I'm inviting him up here
and he wants to snog her."
'I reckon I was a bit...
well, very jealous, shall we say,
'and well pissed off.'
I was shouting and he said, "Hit me.
"I realise I've done wrong. Hit me."
So I did, well and truly.
'My hand really did hurt.'
And I didn't realise
I'd hurt him a lot as well,
which I'm not exactly proud of.
And that was probably
the last time I saw her.
I don't think
Martin was going out with her then.
"The following morning my face
was all swollen up and misshaped.
"My work colleagues were surprised
that little Martin,
whom some of them had met,
had done it."
Oh, dear.
Dear oh dear. Terrible, isn't it?
And now we do the spice.
'I think they split up
a couple of times maybe.
'But I don't know the reasons
why they split up. I've no idea.
'He wasn't particularly happy
that they had.
'But I got the impression
it was from his end rather than hers. '
I can't remember any specific day,
when we said, "Well, that's it."
It just sort of drifted apart really.
I think maybe he'd have liked it
to have worked properly.
I don't know why it didn't.
We never discussed it.
'I do remember some occasions
of some black people saying,
'"What are you doing
going out with a white honky?"'
She never went out
with black guys that I knew of
but I couldn't tell you
who she actually went out with.
Her interest was normally
in kind of office types,
sort of English guys.
Martin was the only one I met
and he wasn't what
I would have expected for Joyce.
'I would have expected somebody
taller, slimmer, really handsome.
'But then she was always
within this black-white...
"'Should he black?
Should he be white?"'
We used to be amused,
Catherine and I.
We used to joke with her
that she should get a black one.'
It was always,
'What you need is a good black man.
"You just haven't found the right one."
I used to tell her,
"You've had a lot of boyfriends.
"Now you've finally got a man."
# I just wanna
# I wanna spend some time with you #
'Alistair used to chase Joyce
at the beginning in the early days.'
When he first met her,
he saw this woman
and he thought,
'Wow, that is a babe of note!"
We slept together for almost a month
and I didn't touch her.
I wasn't going to make the first move.
But he chased and chased and chased.
Alistair's one of those tenacious types.
And I remember afterwards
she told me
she'd said to one of her friends,
"Do you think he's gay?"
# I just wanna
# I wanna spend some time with you #
'The first time I met Joyce
was late 1989
'at a club called Xenon.'
'Xenon was
a very popular watering hole for us
'where we used to club a lot.'
Daily basis.
You know how pop stars...
I was a kind of pop star in those days.
'I used to go to a lot of clubs because
I was trying to promote my music.'
So when I walked in the club
the DJ said,
"We have Alton Edwards in the house."
On goes the song.
And I'd phone him up and say,
"I'm coming down to the club
with 10 or 20 people."
And when my friends arrived,
"I'm with Alton Edwards."
'Alistair was a music manager.
'In those days
he used to manage Osibisa.
'It was an African group.
'And he used to manage people
like Isaac Hayes, Gil Scott-Heron.
'You know, some big names.'
I had an artist, Betty Wright,
who I worked with.
'I remember Betty and her
were very close. Betty liked her.
'She thought Joyce was so beautiful
and such a down-to-earth, soft person
'and she loved her.'
Joyce needed somebody
to care for her.
We were living together
about a year and a half.
'But it was a very intense time.
'It seemed more like ten years.
'We did everything together
'and she totally became
enveloped and embroiled in my life.'
Joyce was my friend,
my lover, my partner,
my...
everything.
'We spent
a lot of wonderful times together.
'One time Jimmy Cliff came
and spent a weekend with us.
'Another time Gil Scott-Heron
had come over for dinner.
And she turned round
and she said to Gil,
"What's your definition of a pessimist?"
Gil's eyes brightened up, a wry smile
creased his face and he said,
"A pessimist is a guy
who's in possession of the full facts."
'But one of the funniest things was,
'I came home one day and
she was chatting away on the phone.
'It turned out it was Isaac Hayes.
They had this chat for 45 minutes
as though they were the best of friends.'
'What do you want to talk to me for?
"You seem to be getting on
very well with Joyce."
He said, "Yeah, I wonder
why I want to talk to you."
'She didn't really have
her own interests.
'It seems like
when she went out with someone,
'she got into their life
and shared their interests.'
So when she went out with someone
she sort of became part of that person.
Joyce was like a chameleon
in many ways,
because she just seemed to adapt
her whole life to mine.
'She had no great ambitions,
no great drives, no great plans.
'She wasn't a person with a past.'
And she certainly wasn't
a person with a future.
# If you should see me
# And I'm smiling
# Don't think my smile is for real
# No expression could explain
# How much my heart's in pain
# Since you left me
# Here's how I feel
# My smile is just a frown
# Turned upside-down
# Just a frown
# Turned upside-down
# Yeah
# But each time when I'm in love
# Teardrops start to fall
# My tears erase the lie
that's on my face
# Cos it's really not a smile
# At all
# My smile is just a frown
# Yeah
# Turned upside-down
# Yeah, yeah
# Just a frown
# Turned upside-down
# Oh-oh oh-oh
# And if by chance
# You hear me laughing
# I only laugh to fool the crowd
# Just like Pagliacci did
# I'll keep my sadness hid
# And true to this I laugh out loud
# My smile is just a frown
# Yeah
# Turned upside-down
# I may look happy when I smile
# But really all the while
# My smile is just a frown
# Yeah, yeah
# Turned upside-down up
# I may appear to have a grin
# But really deep within
# My smile is just a frown
# Turned upside-down #
Blimey.
I wish I had the courage.
- Yeah.
'She had a lot of ambitions.
She wanted to do so many things.
And meeting Alistair, I think,
was kind of like a stepping stone.
'He was her vessel
'to get to different people or places.
'I didn't think
she was into the race thing.
'I don't think
she was into black or white.
I think she just wanted to get places.
When we went along
to the Mandela show,
'she was very excited
at being there.'
But I don't think that would have been
something that was highlighted.
"Ooh, this is the black movement
in South Africa."
'Political change
and all that kind of thing.
'But Mandela is a figure.'
'I really wanted to meet him
and I was off
'having a conversation with somebody.
'She came running up to me
and threw her arms me and said,
"You'll never guess who I just met."
I said, "Who?"
I'm looking around and there's
Denzel Washington and Anita Baker
and Patti LaBelle
and all of these wonderful artists.
And she said, "I met Mandela."
I said, "What?
"'The one person I want to meet
and you got to meet him."
'She just happened to be
in the room when he came in.
'And I just thought to myself,
"How cruel life is."'
"I've been wanting
to meet this man all my life
"and Joyce got to meet him."
'It would have been the same
if she met, say, Princess Diana.
'It wouldn't have been their blackness.
'It wouldn't have been the colour aspect
'more than the person.
That's why every time I think of Joyce
and I think about how she died,
or how she was found should I say,
it just boggles my brain.
How did she get herself
into that situation?
She was far too positive a person
to go down that route.
But then you don't really know people.
Joyce died alone
because she wanted to be alone.
I know people will turn around and say,
'Well, what happened
to her friends and family and so on?"
But I think she's probably got
to take responsibility for a lot of that.
No!
Stop!
# Soon I will be done
# Trouble of the world
# Trouble of the world
# Trouble of the world
# Soon I will be done
# Trouble of the world
# Going home
# To live
# With God #
Mother died in the operation.
Do you hear?
Your mother.
She's gone.
'I think the death of her mother
had a profound effect upon her.'
I remember the story she told me
of how her father just broke the news
to them matter-of-factly.
"Oh, by the way, your mother died."
'How she coped I don't know.
'You would just break into pieces.
My mum went to the operation.
'But she coped.
She came to school.
'She told us all about it.
'Just couldn't understand it.
'Even at that age
you're too young to understand it.'
She died.
'I think that was something
that was central to her life. Very sad.
'She always gave me the impression
that she was looking for a father figure.
'She was looking
for that mature person in her life
'who might give her what
she perhaps didn't get from her father.'
Now, I got the impression
that her dad had died.
'I seem to remember her being off
for a period of time on sick leave.
'I am 100% sure
that is what we were told had happened.
'Her dad had died and she'd been off
for a short while because of it.'
And he died in May 2004.
So he died after her!
It's very mysterious.
That's strange.
'She must have had a reason
'and it must have been
a good reason.
'Because she didn't strike me as
somebody that was a compulsive liar.
'So if she's told that lie,
she's had a good reason to do it.
'Everyone has their secrets.
She just had more than most.
'I don't think she'd
grown-up emotionally.
'She wasn't allowed to develop.
'Being brought up by her sisters,
not having a relationship with her father,
'I think in many ways
emotionally she was retarded.'
'She'd say,
"If my sister calls, I'm not in."
'And she'd just roll her eyes like,
"Oh, here we go again. Nagging."
'I did wonder why.
Why would you not talk to your sisters?
'You'd think about it for a little while
and then not let it bother you.
'But every now and again
you thought, 'Why is that?
"'Why would she not keep
in contact with your family?"'
'It's hard to imagine
Joyce not having any contact
'with her sisters' kids.
'Because she did love them.
She really did.
For her to cut herself off from them
just doesn't sound like Joyce.
'As far as her sisters are concerned,
'if she'd fallen out with them
and ended her relationship with them,
'there was nothing they could do.'
'She didn't strike me
as being maternal.
'She was never broody that way
towards her nieces and nephews.'
'Although everything about Joyce
was all very superficial,
'in that she never really liked
to let people in.
'You never ever knew
that she had a problem in her life.
'The moment
something wasn't right
'she'd just up sticks and move.
'The times she moved in London,
and I was always helping her move.
'The familiar black bin liners
with all her stuff in.'
'Her life was virtually one suitcase.
'No pictures,
very few memories, no music.
'She seemed
to lead this nomadic existence.'
'I was aware later on
that she'd walked out of several jobs.
'And you'd ask why
and she'd never really give a reason
other than she got a bit of hassle
from someone at work.
We kind of rescued her
from the clutches of a colleague.
'He was quite determined
that he was going go home with her.
'I think because Joyce had had a few,
'her resistance may have been
a little bit lower than normal.'
She made it quite clear that
she wanted to go home on her own,
so me and Kim made it our duty
to make sure that she got in a cab.
She said,
"Oh, someone was pestering me".
'I said, "What, in a sexual sort of way?"
And she said, "Yes."
'And then,
rather than confront the problem,
'she would just walk out of the job.'
That's a strange way
of dealing with things,
to not really confront them.
Hi, John.
'She had some trauma
with the relationship she was in
'and turned up at my house.
'I don't remember if she came
with a bag, a bin liner or what.
'It was like I wanted to help her
and I wanted to find out a bit more.
I don't know if I wanted to know more
because I wanted a relationship with her.
That's partly true.
'I don't know the arrangement
'but she was staying
up at John's place.'
There were things
that used to make her uncomfortable.
Talking about sex
made her feel uncomfortable.
I think he probably thought
she fancied him as well,
knowing him.
After a while she started
to feel comfortable around me,
and she'd be walking around
in her underwear, which was just...
I mean, she was gorgeous
and you don't want some girl you fancy
walking around your house in underwear.
'Over the few weeks before she left,
there was a tension developing.
'Maybe men and women
see things differently.'
But I saw it
as some sort of sexual tension.
There were times when I thought,
"Shall I, shan't I?"
I'm sure there were occasions when
I may have been able to take advantage.
I think I may have been able
to take advantage.
She gave that impression.
Although I never did
and it never happened.
And then it got to the point where...
There was one day when it was
just becoming very uncomfortable.
I came home and she was gone
and it was a relief to find she'd gone.
'Part of me wonders
whether there was sadness in her life.
'Obviously something wasn't right.'
'It did cross my mind that
something happened in her childhood
'that affected her.'
One of the things I thought,
initially, and it came back to mind,
was that maybe she was abused.
'She was almost the perfect example
'of someone
that was interfered with as a child.
'You think stuff like that
because of the way she was.'
I often wondered if that was contributing
to her character of secrecy.
Or maybe she...
I was going to say she didn't trust people,
but then, she did trust people.
That was one thing.
She did trust people.
Maybe she was over-trusting.
Maybe she got...
Later on, maybe she was not so trusting.
It's a funny contradiction.
Does she trust people
and then she doesn't tell people?
She kind of made relationships
but to a certain point.
Because of maybe a trust issue.
She didn't trust.
She had a problem trusting people.
'It was said at the inquest
'that she had been linked
into a battered woman's organisation.'
It was never settled satisfactorily
'whether or not
she had been an abused woman.
'I think it's fair to say
she'd been in an abusive relationship.
'I thought someone might have been
looking out for her because of that.
'But she'd sort of moved
out of that system.'
'I think that when
Joyce was in the women's refuge
'she was probably ashamed.
The domestic violence
doesn't surprise me.
'Guys were just so focussed
and so possessive with her.
'That bit just didn't surprise me at all.'
There was no evidence of it
when we lived together.
There was nothing to say...
She never said anything
about any other boyfriends
being physical with her.
It was just the emotional intensity.
She seemed to make
all the wrong choices with men,
which is sad really, very sad.
It's sad that men could treat her badly
because she didn't deserve it.
She wasn't that type of person.
I feel quite sad
that maybe she didn't feel
that she could share that with people
that did really care about her
and I think genuinely
would have helped her.
'She was always reticent
and reluctant to talk about her past.'
'You get to know people
that tend to keep going back
'to people that are violent.
'They often had violent backgrounds
so they see that as normal.'
And if you're nice to them,
they can't handle it. They don't like it.
My only theory is that if she was
with a guy who used to beat her,
perhaps he isolated her
from the family.
Because that's a classic thing to do
for anyone who is a bully,
get them away
from their nearest and dearest.
And then they've got total control.
'I felt very upset
that anyone could be horrible
'to someone who's so gentle,
'someone who, as I said, hasn't got
a shred of nastiness about them.
And then...
for some guy to...
...well, take advantage
of her niceness, if you like,
and just be horrible to her...
She was the least deserving person
of that sort of treatment.
We've all made
stupid choices in our lives,
'but hers were tragic.
Why did she gravitate to bad people?
Because she was a very bright girl.
She was a very bright girl.
'I'd like to know
what her problem was.'
And I'd like to think that the people
that caused her that problem
will get their comeuppance as well.
This is BBC1.
And now the ten o'clock news.
'She was obviously
in a difficult relationship.
'They had come to a point
where they couldn't live together
'but they couldn't move out.'
They almost divided the house up.
- Yeah.
'I didn't know much about them
other than she had to escape from them.
'I don't know if it was the same person
or a load of different people.'
Although two of them
were probably serious enough
for her to need to disappear.
'And the last one certainly was,
whoever he was.
'I think he should be...
'absolutely ashamed of himself
if he's still around
'to make a girl disappear.'
'The last time I saw her
was up the West End somewhere.'
I was walking down this street
and she was coming towards me,
so I stopped and said, "Joyce!"
She looked at me
and put her head down
and kind of just scurried along.
She picked up speed.
I was like, "Joyce!"
'She just carried on
so I thought, 'Hm, OK
"if that's what you want."
That would have been around 2001.
'They said she died
around December 2003.
'She left the company in March '01.
'It makes you wonder what was going on
when she was working with us.
'Who was she seeing?
What sort of person was he?'
And whether that had anything
to do with her leaving.
She was hiding from somebody.
- Yeah.
'She gave this impression
at work and when we socialised
that she was a happy, bubbly person.
But it makes you wonder
what was actually going on.
'She decided she was going
to go travelling or move on.
'She worked there for four years.'
And they were sorry to see her go.
She had a lovely leaving do
and everybody wished her well.
'I have spoken to somebody
that still actually works there
'and she quite clearly remembers
Joyce telling her
'that she had been head-hunted
by another company.'
'There do seem
to be a lot of conflicting stories
'about what she did when she left.'
'But her boss
definitely is 100% sure
'that she was going travelling
with this group of 20 people.
'And I like to think
that that's what she did.'
If you think about it,
it's like we just accepted
that we never heard from her again.
And there's...
I don't know, there's a part of me
that feels a little bit
uncomfortable about that.
Because you like to think
that you keep in touch with people,
or you make the effort.
And I really just don't understand
what happened here.
'I got this call one day.
It just came out of the blue.
'And I heard this voice say, "Al?"
'I recognised the voice
but I was shocked.
'I hadn't expected to hear from her.
And she said, "It's Joyce."'
A whole kaleidoscope of emotions
went coursing through my brain.
'We met very close
to where she was working.
'What she said to me was
that she'd kind of regretted
'the fact
that we were no longer together.'
'She said that she'd realised
she'd made a mistake.'
That was the one time in her life
that she was truly happy.
'She said, "Would we be able
to pick up the pieces?"
And I just told her that
I didn't think that was possible.
I'd moved on.
I didn't want to... go back.
'That was the last time
I ever spoke to her.'
I think that's probably
the last thing she did say,
apart from, you know,
a kiss on the cheek and goodbye.
I know
it was August bank holiday 2001,
when she came to phone me up
in the middle of the night
and said, "Can I come over and stay,
just for a week or something?"
I said, "Yeah. Sure. "
'I asked her loads,
like, "Are you in trouble?
"'Has anyone bashed you around
or anything like that?
'And no, she was just...'
She said no.
Or did she? I don't know.
I can't remember.
'I met him for a drink
one evening and he said,
"Oh, yeah, Joyce is around."
'I said, "Blimey. How is she?"
and so forth.
'I think he said
she was staying on his couch.'
'She was short of money.
She had a laptop which she sold.
'She just wouldn't tell me
what was going on.
'August bank holiday came and went
'and I said,
"Oh, I thought you were going to go."'
Not that I was trying
to push her out or anything.
And she said, "Can I stay a bit longer?"
I said, "Yeah, no problem at all."
I think I asked him,
was he seeing her again?
He said, no,
she was just staying on the couch
and he was just helping her out.
It was one new year
and Martin phoned me up
and said, "Happy new year.
Someone here wants to talk to you."
And he handed the phone
over to Joyce.
It must have been into 2002
she was still there.
'I was getting a bit anxious as to
how long exactly she was going to stay.
'It ended up she was there
about six months in the end.'
He must have said to me
that he said to her,
"You have to go.
You can't stay on my couch anymore."
Which is fair enough.
It is a really small one-bedroom at.
'I even asked her
if she wanted to go out with me again.
'She said, "No, I don't want
to go back over old ground."'
But I knew in my heart that wasn't
the reason she was staying with me.
I feel really guilty now
because at that time
I was wrapped up
doing other stuff.
And I said, "Yeah,
I'll come and meet you."
And I had things happen
so I never did.
And month on month it went on.
"Maybe I should contact Martin
go and see Joyce."
And I never did.
She could have stayed longer
if she wanted to.
I just wanted her to sort herself out.
'He obviously feels bad
about that,
'That's probably
around the last time he saw her.'
She told me
she was working in the City,
but she didn't say where or doing what.
And when she went to work
'she didn't look her well turned out,
highly polished style.
'Her character seemed really different.
I think she was trying to be the same.
'But you could tell there was something
that she wasn't talking about.'
'I took the day off one day
and she went, apparently, out to work.
'And then I went
to Shepherd's Bush Green.
'And she probably thought
I'd gone to work
'cos she was coming back
across the pedestrian crossing.
'And I was going, "I thought
you'd gone to work, Joyce."'
I'm not feeling very well, Martin.
I thought, "You're not going to work.
You haven't got a job.
"She hasn't told me."
'I think my offers of help
just turned into pressure on her, really.
'There was clearly something going on.'
And I just remember coming back
one day and she'd just gone.
Joyce. Joyce, just breathe easily.
'I think of her constantly.
Constantly.'
And I just...
In fact, I sometimes lie in bed
talking to myself
as if I'm talking to her,
you know, talking out loud.
Yeah, I think about her a lot, really.
Just holding her, actually.
Holding her.
Just breathe easily.
I've spoken to people and they've said,
"That was the love of your life."
And I think they're right, definitely.
Yeah.
'She went in for a peptic ulcer,
which wasn't long before she died.
'She put her next of kin
as her bank manager.'
Is that right?
- Yeah.
She was that removed,
I think, at that point.
Gosh. That's incredible.
- Yeah.
Oh.
Oh, how sad. Yeah.
That's sad,
cos obviously you've got family
and you don't know what's happened.
But surely there's got to be a friend
more than your bank manager.
Oh, my God.
That really sums it up, doesn't it?
'A letter turned up for her.
'I thought maybe it would give me a clue
as to where she was living or something,
'so I just opened it in the end.'
It was a wages slip for a cleaning job.
So I was really hurt when I saw that.
'She wasn't working in the City at all.
She was doing some cleaning job.
'That's why she didn't look polished
in her usual attire.
I thought,
"She didn't want me to know
where she was going,
what she was doing."
Again harbouring those secrets,
which I found a bit heart-breaking,
to tell you the truth.
'Really? A cleaner?
No, doesn't...
I mean... I don't know.
I'm just trying to picture her doing
that sort of work and I just can't do it,
knowing the sort of person she was.
I suppose I'm trying to picture her
doing it all dolled up
and immaculately dressed
with her hair and...
With a tight sort of skirt on.
- Pushing an umbrella.
Not an umbrella.
A Hoover around.
- An umbrella!
She didn't know
what life she wanted and the thing is,
the life that she should have had
was staring her in the face all the time.
'I think she wanted
to settle down.
'That was very much the thing
of the crowd that we were in.
'You get married by the time
you're 25, 26, so you have babies.'
With this ring I wed.
'That's the reason
for getting married, to have children.'
'She asked me to once.'
And I thought
maybe she meant like straight away.
And I said, "Oh, no, no, no."
'When you're in your 20s
you don't think about these things.
'The thought of getting married and
having children is off-putting
'when you can go out and have
a few beers and have a good time
'and you've got no responsibilities.'
He said to me once...
When I said, 'Well,
why don't you marry Joyce?
'Why don't you get engaged?"
And he says, "It would be unfair.
"We'd have tinted children.
I don't want tinted children."
He didn't mean that in a racist way.
At the time
there was a lot of racism around
and half-caste kids get
the worst of it, don't they?
My dad said something like,
I saw Martin coming off the train
with a young lady.
"Is she black or something?"
That made me laugh.
When Martin's father died
a few years back
maybe then he started thinking
"Well, I should have done."
Because he wasn't there
to pass judgment, you know.
Maybe that was one of the things
he was thinking.
But you can always think
you could have done things differently.
If she had married Alistair,
I think that he would have made her
a good husband.
Whether she would have made him
a good wife is another story.
But he loved her, desperately.
'I did love her, intensely,
and I think she loved me very deeply.
'And therein lay the problem.
'I don't think she thought
she was capable of loving.
'I don't think she thought
she was capable of being happy.'
Maybe it was just too good for her
in the sense that...
"I want this but is it really me?"
I think she was afraid to...
...live the dream.
'She always believed
'that something would come
and mess it up.
'There'd always be somebody there
to burst the bubble.
'And I kept saying to her,
"'Just enjoy it, just look at the light
shining on that bubble.
The wonderful colours
that are thrown up.
"'Deal with that first and when it bursts,
then deal with that."
'That was part of her problem.
'She had demons that haunted her.'
OK.
'It's really strange.
It's like she never really existed,
'She was a figment of our imagination
and she was a story.
'It was like someone
that we all just made up,
'partly because we let someone
disappear off and die.'
Someone we all knew
and thought we cared about.
If you laid it out in a book form,
you'd be thinking,
"This has got to be fiction."
But this is real life.
The debate about living
in dislocated societies,
not having communities any more,
it's been banging on for ages
and it's just been a sort of theory.
And this is like the living reality of it.
I often thought
about what she was doing
and most of the time I actually thought
that she was already dead.
We all have to think
about how we live our lives a bit more
and stop this crazy existence where
we don't have time for friends or family.
We only have time
to go shopping, ironically.
Wood Green Shopping City!
Even in this 21st century,
you still can fall through the cracks.
She may change the way people think
in a very tiny way.
You know,
"I'll go and check my neighbour."
Or, "Maybe I haven't seen
my friend for a year.
"I'm going to go
and get in contact with them."
So I think
that's what she'll leave behind.
Everybody I've spoken to from then,
they're like,
"Joyce? You're kidding!"
The only person
I think may have been...
One of the closest people in her life
was probably Martin.
I still wish...
I still wish that
they'd got together and married.
Because she'd still be here.
I'm sure she'd still be here.
I wish you'd rung me.
Cos I would have helped
cos I love you.
And this is his 13th century
common discovery,
which I think is a pretty good record.
# Watch me fall from grace
# Disappear with no trace
# As I try to erase you
# Feel the pain and watch me bleed
# Surely this is not what I need
# Shut out everyone
# And watch me run
# Lay me under the sun
# So cold I have become
# Now that I have been undone
# Watch me fall from grace
# Disappear with no trace
# As I try to erase you
# Feel the pain and watch me bleed
# Surely this is not what I need #
Now we,
as people of South Africa,
respect each and every one of you.
We admire you.
And above all we love you.
# Oh, won't you tell me
# Won't you tell me
# Oh, won't you tell me
# Tell me now
# Oh, I need you to tell me
# I want you to tell me
# Tell me, tell me, tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me now
# Tell me
# Tell me, tell me, tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me
# Tell me, tell me, tell me
# Yeah, yeah, yeah
# Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me now
# Ooh, ooh, ooh
# Yeah, yeah, yeah
# Speak to me and tell me now
# Tell me
# Yeah
# Ooh, ooh, oh, oh, ohh
# Tell me, tell me
# Oh, yeah
# Oh, won't you tell me
# Oh, tell me
# Won't you tell me
# Yeah, yeah... ##