Joan Matthews was born on 24^th April 1921 at Westgate, Haltwhistle, Northumberland. Her parents were John Thompson Matthews (then aged 30) and Mary Elizabeth Teasdale Matthews (née Liddell) (then aged 28).

At the time of Joan’s birth, her father John Matthews (who was known as Jack) was a hewer at Plenmeller Colliery, which was about a mile south-east of Haltwhistle. However, he was not working as the miners had been locked out since 1^st April 1921.

The 1921 Census was taken on 19^th June that year, eight weeks after Joan’s birth. It had been planned to have been taken on 24^th April, the day that Joan was born, but had been postponed due to the industrial turmoil taking place at the time. The mines had been put under government control in February 1917 in order to ensure the level of coal supplies during the rest of the First World War. When control was returned to the coal owners their response was to insist on cuts in pay and increased working hours. When the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain (MFGB) rejected the terms the coal owners locked the miners out with effect from 1^st April 1921. This must have been a very worrying time for Joan’s parents, with no money coming in and a new-born baby. The miners were forced to abandon their stance and return to work in early July, having to accept the pay cuts and increased hours.

The 1921 Census records Joan aged 2 months and living with her parents Jack and Mary Matthews at Westgate, Haltwhistle. Jack Matthews is recorded as an “out of work hewer” at Plenmeller Colliery. The colliery was employing 714 men in 1921, 603 of them underground. It was producing around 180,000 tons of coal per year at this time.

When Joan was five years old the family moved from Haltwhistle to Choppington, when Joan’s father Jack was employed at Choppington Colliery. Joan could recall that this happened just before she was due to start school. She had been looking forward to going to the school in Haltwhistle as her Grandfather Liddell was the caretaker there.

Joan’s father became a weighman at Choppington. The job of weighman was an important one as miners were not then paid a standard wage but were remunerated according to the weight of coal which they had produced. Joan’s father was responsible to the colliery management for ensuring accuracy in weighing coal and hence accurate pay. His counterpart would have been the checkweighman, elected by the miners themselves to guarantee a correct and accurate process. Joan recalled that it was hard for her to make friends at Choppington because her father was the management’s weighman.

Joan Matthews left school at 14 and went to Secretarial School in Newcastle for six months to learn shorthand and typing. She then found employment as a shorthand typist with the Cooperative Wholesale Society (CWS) at Blandford Street, Newcastle upon Tyne. Joan met David Besford on the bus going into Newcastle in 1935 when she was 14 and David was 16. They discovered that they were both working for the CWS. A romance developed, but Joan’s parents, particularly her mother, were very strict and she used to meet David secretly on a Sunday afternoon to go for a walk together, not telling her mother and father who she was meeting. Joan and David went on to marry four years after the start of the Second World War.

When war broke out Joan joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). The ATS was the women’s branch of the British Army. It was established in September 1938. Members of the ATS served in a variety of capacities, including drivers, telephonists, typists, ammunition inspectors, radar operators, anti-aircraft gun crew members, and military police. From conversations with Joan in later life we know that at the time she found her service liberating as she was able to serve away from home and obtain a measure of personal independence.

Joan’s role in the ATS was as a shorthand typist. She was posted to London where she lived in Warwickshire House, Gower Street, Bloomsbury. This building was the accommodation for single female employees of Bourne & Hollingsworth, a large department store on the corner of Oxford Street and Berners Street. The Warwickshire House building was also used as a hostel for the ATS. It was a lovely building with a high standard of access, and a ballroom on the ground floor. Despite the fact that there was a war on it played host to regular dances and social events. It was, however hit by a bomb and suffered damage.

Joan loved the freedom of being away from home, She remembered fondly making friends with a girl from the East End and visiting her home, describing it as “rough and ready but very welcoming”. Joan stayed the night and slept on a couple of armchairs which had been pushed together. She also remembered eating bagels there.

Joan was based in London for around three months before being posted to Dingwall in Ross-shire in the north of Scotland, where she served as a clerical officer. Joan didn’t enjoy her time in Dingwall so much as she was sharing accommodation with other girls whom she described as “flighty”, feeling that she didn’t have much in common with them.

Joan married David Besford on 11^th September 1943 at St. Paul’s Parish Church, Choppington, Northumberland. She and David began their married life at 2 Mowbray Terrace, Choppington, the home of Joan’s parents. Joan remembered going for a dress for her wedding with her mother Mary Matthews and her mother-in-law to be, Agnes Besford. Agnes picked the dress telling Joan that it would go well with the one that David’s sister Dora was going to wear as bridesmaid. Joan and her mother went along with this.

A few weeks after their relatively small wedding, Joan and David went to Haltwhistle to visit Joan’s many aunts (her father Jack was the only boy in the family and had eleven sisters). They got quite a cool reception which puzzled them. This only changed when their first son John was born eleven and a half months after their wedding. They found out that Joan’s mother had written to the family beforehand saying she hoped they would understand not being invited as it was going to be a small wedding “under the circumstances”. She meant war-time by this, but this had not been how the aunts had interpreted it, believing erroneously that they had had to get married!

Joan and David’s first son, John Besford, was born on 23^rd August 1944 at the Mona Taylor Maternity Home, Stannington. Mona Taylor had been a suffragette, campaigning for votes for women. The maternity home at Stannington was named after her because of the philanthropic work she undertook with her husband Thomas Taylor.

Joan and David’s second son, David Besford, was born on 10^th January 1946 at Dilston Hall Maternity Home, on the site of the ruins of Dilston Castle, about one and a half miles south-west of Corbridge. Joan was in Dilston Hall for two weeks before David was born, having been taken in early because of the bad weather and the consequent possibility that she might otherwise not get there in time for the birth. Joan and David were in the maternity home for over a week after his birth. David Besford senior cycled to Dilston on a daily basis to visit them. Although Joan and David were still living at 2 Mowbray Terrace, Choppington, at this time, David must have presumably based himself temporarily at 12 Moorfield, his parents’ home in Newcastle, in order to cycle to Dilston. Joan remembered enjoying the semolina pudding which was served for supper each night while she was in Dilston Hall!

Joan talked about living at Mowbray Terrace in Choppington with David, her parents, and John and David as babies. Apparently her father Jack Matthews used to wake John up to play with him. Joan used to walk miles with John and David in their pram in the afternoons while her father (who was working shifts at the pit) was at home trying to sleep.

By the time of the birth of Joan and David’s third son, Alan, the family were living at East Denton, having purchased 18 Mill Hill Road. Alan was born at the Princess Mary Maternity Hospital in Newcastle on 3^rd January 1948, becoming the last member of this branch of the Besford family to be born prior to the inauguration of the National Health Service six months later.

Joan used to travel by bus every week from Mill Hill Road to Moorfield to do housework at David’s parents. This meant catching two buses each way, with three small boys in tow. This only became slightly easier when John started school. Apparently Agnes offered to pay her but David refused this offer on Joan’s behalf. Agnes then used to make sure that Joan always got something from the butcher’s, a pound of sausages or mince. Joan stressed that she “always got on well with Agnes”, but nevertheless in later life commented “I must have been mad to do it!”