Music and dancing a joy for Mrs Joyce Bloodworth
Living independently in her own home at Oasis Garden Village, Gawler East, with support from Resthaven Northern Community Services, Mrs Joyce Bloodworth (nee Ward) recently turned 104 on 19 November – but you could be forgiven for thinking she was a much younger woman.
‘People say I don’t have many wrinkles,’ Joyce says with a laugh. ‘But, I say to them, they’re in places where you can’t see!’
Joyce was born in Coventry in the United Kingdom, the oldest of two girls to Thomas and Ellie Ward. At the age of eight, she was diagnosed with anaemia and was sent to the country to attend an ‘open-air’ school for 18 months, where the fresh air and sunlight were thought to invigorate the students and improve their metabolism.
‘I was very homesick,’ Joyce says. ‘I cried myself to sleep every night.’
Joyce improved, and once back home, she and her sister, Vera, took up ballet and piano lessons.
‘I enjoyed piano, and played for many years,’ Joyce says.
It was only recently that Joyce stopped playing, due to the loss of feeling and control of her fingers as a result of nerve damage following surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome.
‘For many years, we had a piano and a Yamaha organ,’ Joyce says. ‘I played classical music, as well as wartime tunes. When I played ‘When the Poppies Bloom Again’, the tears used to roll down my face. ‘The Mexican Hat Dance’ was also a favourite, with very quick notes.’
Joyce left school at 14 and began work as a finisher at a textile factory. The role involved ‘finishing’ garments –doing things such as sewing buttons onto cardigans.
At 20, with World War II underway, she signed up for National Service. Joyce worked in one of the Coventry ‘shadow’ aircraft factories between 1940-1944, inspecting metal propeller gears. It was heavy, noisy work, and Joyce suffered from many metal splinters.
‘The noise from the US-made machinery was deafening,’ Joyce says. ‘I would have to go outside to recover, now and again. I didn’t like it.’
At the same time, Joyce volunteered in a First Aid and home nursing, as well as being involved briefly with the Salvation Army and Baptist Church.
Coventry was bombed many times during World War II and it had a lasting effect on Joyce’s life.
‘I could not continue with nursing after the war, as the bombing affected my nerves,’ Joyce says.
Instead, at the end of World War II, she worked in various sales departments as a clerk, and then at a telephone house doing paperwork. A keen ballroom dancer, Joyce began dance lessons again – which she enjoyed much more than ballet.
The boy next door
It was 1950 and Joyce’s mother needed her Bush Radio repaired.
‘We knew that the son of the family who lived just five doors down the road was a radio repair man,’ Joyce says. ‘I knew him from before the war, but we had never played together or anything. My mother called him over to repair the radio. His name was Ken, and he looked nice and smart.’
‘After Ken had repaired the radio, my mother asked me to walk him to the door to let him out. At the doorstep he asked me if I liked to dance. I said that I was taking lessons, and we made a date to go dancing and have dinner together.’
One thing led to another, and the pair were married in 1953.
Ken had been in the Royal Corps of Signals (RCS) in the British Army and had been in Egypt as part of the post-war clean-up. He ran his own workshop to maintain and repair the radio communications equipment used in army vehicles and antenna’s used in the vehicles and up antenna towers. After being de-mobbed from the army on returning to England he continued to use his skills, setting up his own radio repair business.
‘We enjoyed learning advanced dancing together,’ Joyce says. ‘With Sylvester’s Book of Modern Ballroom Dancing in hand.’
Ken and Joyce bought a house in Radford, Coventry and at the end of that same year, their son, Michael (Mike), was born.
Australia bound
In 1949, Ken’s brother was asked by his UK employer to setup a weaving factory in Toowoomba, Queensland. He and his family moved to the Australian town, successfully setting up the factory, and enjoying the lifestyle so much that they staying for the rest of his life. As a child, Mike suffered from asthma and eczema, so Ken and Joyce decided that a move to a drier climate would improve these conditions. With multiple motivations, in 1964, the family booked their tickets for the six-week journey to Australia on the passenger liner the Orcades.
Arriving in South Australia, Ken found work as a television and radio technician with Phillips at Henson, later helping to bring Phillips and Kriesler colour television to the state in the mid-1970s. He was later employed in the workshop at Radio Rentals where he used his high level of technical skills and expertise to complete repair work on colour televisions until his retirement.
‘If they couldn’t fix it in the field, then they would bring it into the workshop and Ken would do it,’ Joyce says.
Ken was also an avid ham radio operator, as well as a keen gardener, creating spectacular gardens both here in Australia and in England.
To earn a little money herself, Joyce did some cleaning work for local homes.
‘It took me a while to settle in Australia,’ Joyce says. ‘I couldn’t find the food I wanted to eat.’
The family never had a car, but Ken bought a motorbike to help him get to work. Joyce mostly walked to the places she needed to go, or accepted rides with her bosses.
‘I went on the back of the bike once – but never again,’ Joyce laughs. ‘We just went out the road, but I think he was as nervous as I was! I did a lot of walking. I miss that now.’
The family would often holiday in Toowoomba, where Ken’s brother had settled. One of their first trips up there, in 1966, Joyce travelled alone with Mike.
‘When we were there, Mike caught the measles from his cousins!’ Joyce says. ‘I didn’t know they had it! But it meant that we stayed for two and a half months (Mike was supposed to be doing his Grade 7 exams). They had a house on stilts, and it was about 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius) during the day, but then very cold at night.’
Joyce and Ken travelled a few times back to Queensland after Ken retired in 1986, and in 1992 they visited with Mike’s then five-year-old daughter, their granddaughter, Susan.
‘It was one of the best holidays we ever had,’ Joyce says.
Sadly, Ken developed vascular dementia in 2002 and moved into a high-care facility, where he passed away in 2011 at the age of 90.
In 2006, Joyce moved into the Oasis Garden Village, Gawler, to be closer to Mike and his family. She is supported to live in her own home by Resthaven Northern Community Services who help with domestic duties and social visits. Joyce enjoys keeping her mind active with crosswords and stays fit with exercise. She has two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Her advice for others hoping to reach over a century? ‘Lead a clean life and try and keep moving.’
Thanks for sharing your story, Joyce, and congratulations on your 104th birthday!