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December 2024
Joyce Lear, resident in the village since the 1970s, has written her life story, and what a glamorous life it has been! Joyce arrived in London from Newcastle aged only 22 and got herself a job as one of Fleet Street’s youngest female reporters. From the Daily Sketch she progressed to the dizzy heights and glamorous world of glossy magazines where she famously launched the first ever UK edition of Cosmopolitan magazine.
Rubbing shoulders with the rich and the famous, she recounts how she was a regular panellist of TV shows like What’s My Line. Amidst all this, Joyce and her husband Bill one day found themselves in Piccotts End, visiting a fellow journalist friend Val Corbett. Seeing a house across the road that was for sale, Joyce immediately phoned the estate agent and said ‘We’ll buy it.’ This was before she’d even been inside!
The rest, as they say, is history. Joyce left the high life of magazines many years ago and she and Bill remain happily in Piccotts End to this day.
