A Brighton centenarian celebrated her landmark birthday by attending the regional premiere of a new film set in Hove.
Margaret Joyce went to see The Great Escaper, starring Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson, at the Duke of York’s Cinema on Thursday.
The film is based on the real-life story of Bernie Jordan, who escaped his Hove care home to attend the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Like Michael Caine’s character Bernie in the film, her late husband Harry Joyce had landed on Sword Beach.
Margaret herself served with the Auxiliary Territorial Service.
After the film, about real-life couple Bernie and Irene Jordan, Margaret’s daughter Maggie said: “Brilliant, absolutely brilliant and very moving. Two great actors portraying it.
“Bernie went to Sword Beach and that’s where my dad landed as well. I feel like when he was alive, we took the mickey out of him a bit with his war stories and I wish I never had.”
Margaret and Maggie were invited to the premier by the Soldiers’ Sailors’ and Airmen’s Families Association (SSAFA) which helps former servicemen and women.
The charity helped Harry before his death, and later Margaret. Maggie said: “SSAFA has been brilliant helping my mum. She had a new boiler fitted and got a new window for her bathroom. She also received an annuity for a while which we used to pay for taxis to get her out and about.”
Regarding her service, Margaret says she thoroughly enjoyed her time in the ATS. She was called up in 1939 and completed three months training in Yorkshire. The day she collected her uniform she was given a set with enormous bloomers, as a joke, because she was such a tiny woman.
After she was demobbed, she met Harry at the cinema, and a long-lasting romance ensued.
Maggie says: “They were married in 1948, the day ‘My Love’ won the Derby.
Graham Fowler, the Joyces’ SSAFA caseworker said: “They were an astonishingly brave couple. Margaret was a searchlight operator in the war in Dagenham, which was the Luftwaffe’s main target in London. They would first try to take out the searchlights with machine guns before bombing the factories; it was a really dangerous job.
“Harry was a very brave man too. When I applied for his service history they came back saying that his date of birth was wrong. ‘No,’ twinkled Harry, ‘I lied and said I was 18. I was only 17 really.’. Harry went on to join the Army Commandos, an elite unit reserved only for special operations. He survived the Dieppe raid, where thousands died, and took part in the Rhine Crossing.”
