She was the daughter of Doctor George Hunter Dunn, a General Practice from Farnborough, Hampshire. A great-great-grandfather was William Hunter, Lord Mayor of London in 1851-1852 (the grandfather of both of her father"s parents). Her mother, Mabel Liddelow, died in 1916, and Joan was educated from the age of six at Queen Anne"s School, Caversham, near Reading, Berkshire, where she played tennis, became captain of the lacrosse team, and was head girl.
She studied for a diploma at King"s College of Household and Social Science, and joined the catering department at the University of London.
Betjeman saw her for the first time in December 1940. He was working for the Films Division of the Ministry of Information, based in the Senate House of the University of London, where she worked in the canteen. Although married for seven years, he was struck by her beauty, he fell in love, and composed a 44-line poem fantasising about them being engaged and playing tennis together in Aldershot:
The poem was published in Cyril Connolly"s Horizon magazine in February 1941.
Betjeman invited her to lunch, and presented her with a copy of the magazine containing the poem, begging her forgiveness.
In an interview in The Sunday Times magazine in 1965, illustrated with photographs by Lord Snowdon, she said: "lieutenant was such a marvellous break from the monotony of the war. lieutenant really was remarkable the way he imagined it all.
Actually, all that about the subaltern, and the engagement is sheer fantasy, but my life was very like the poem."
Betjeman was invited, but was unable to attend. The poem was republished in Betjeman"s book New Bats in Old Belfries in 1945, and was later mentioned in Flanders and Swann"s "Tried by Centre Court".
They then lived in Singapore, before returning to the United Kingdom in 1957.
Harold worked for Independent Television and then for the British Broadcasting Corporation in Rhodesia. He died of a heart attack in 1963. She returned to their home, in Headley, Hampshire, to raise their three young boys.
Despite straitened finances, all three attended Winchester College.
She attended the memorial service for Betjeman at Westminster Abbey in 1984. Her letters from Betjeman, contained in a bureau, were stolen in a burglary in 1996.
Quotations:
"lieutenant was such a marvellous break from the monotony of the war. lieutenant really was remarkable the way he imagined it all. Actually, all that about the subaltern, and the engagement is sheer fantasy, but my life was very like the poem." She married Harold Wycliffe Jackson, a civil servant in the Ministry of Information, in January 1945, at Street Mark"s Church in Farnborough.
Betjeman was invited, but was unable to attend.
The poem was republished in Betjeman"s book New Bats in Old Belfries in 1945, and was later mentioned in Flanders and Swann"s "Tried by Centre Court".
