Joan
Bagley c.1995 - Photo courtesy of, and ©, Lecia
Foston
Desmond Bagley was married only once. He met Joan Magaret
Brown in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1959 while on good
form at a party. She was eleven years his
junior.
Although
Joan came from a mixed English-Polish/Jewish background and
Bagley had a strictly Catholic upbringing, this didn't
impede their romance, or subsequent marriage in 1960.
Despite
her preparing for University Joan's family couldn't
actually afford to send her when the time came and instead
she had to find work. As luck would have it this was in the
Johannesburg Public Library and for a person keen on books
this was at least some consolation. Eventually the young
Miss Brown became restless and decided she would like to
get into book selling rather than lending. To this end she
found work in a small South African bookshop, working there
for eleven years, during which time it grew to become a
leading outlet. It was here that Joan learned about the ins
and outs of the book trade, a reservoir of useful
information that was to stand her in such good stead during
years to come.
Joan
Bagley became her husband's manager, research assistant,
secretary, filing-clerk, public relations officer and no.1
critic (not forgetting running an efficient house-hold!).
It was customary for the author to spend the day writing,
and for the finished work to be scrutinised closely by
Joan. They became a formidable husband-and-wife team, well
equipped with their combined experience in the book trade
and journalism. Over the years they travelled the world
together researching the various stories and it was only a
trip to the Antarctic on which the author went alone.
Joan's
personal interests have been almost as diverse as her
husband's, including fencing and ornithology, classical
music and The Times crosswords. Her fund-raising activities
for charity have included support for nature-conservancy
and animal welfare organisations. A fine example recently
was a bequest she made to build an new Information Centre
for the La Société Guernesiaise.
Both
partners were fans of science fiction, in particular Star
Trek.
Ever
interested in new technology Joan used an Apple Macintosh
computer for writing and for surfing the internet. I wonder
what her husband would have made of the advances in
word-processing since his experimental steps into the IT
world using a Hewlett Packard machine back in the late
70's!
Joan
Bagley died on the 30th of June 1999.