I shall remember Joe Tewson as a warm friendly collaborative inventive colleague whose ever cheerful disposition despite the brick bats and anxieties life had thrown at her brought sunshine to the rehearsal room the film set and the recording studio.
There were many thoughtful kindnesses two weeks after the series ended. Knowing we shared a love of music Joe treated me to a memorable evening at the WigmoreHall where we enjoyed an unforgettable performance preceded by a merry supper of Schubert's Winterreise by Ian Bostridge. It was a way of expressing how much she enjoyed our work working together after Keeping Up Appearances. Its writer Roy Clarke came up with another Joe special The Unlucky in love librarian Miss Davenport in the final few series of Last of the Summer Wine.
During gaps in the filming she'd take on demanding stage roles at far-flung theatres. Sometimes she said just to see if she could still learn the lines and she could. I remember her being fantastic in a two-hander On The Fringe and Alan Bennett talking head in Worcester and a new play at Leeds all when she was in her late 70s.
None of this relentless activity stopped her having a full life at home in West Hampstead just down the road from where she'd been born. She was almost as passionate about classical music and cricket as she was about the theatre. She had a positive Mania for Richard III fervently defending him whenever the opportunity arose.
For many years she served as a trustee of the actor's benevolent fund. She had friends whom she met at Lords and other friends who accompanied her to the proms. And of course she also had a wonderfully happy second marriage to her beloved Harry the genial dentist who arrived to rent her spare room in the early 70s and promptly swept her off her feet.
Everyone was absolutely thrilled about this Joe deserved Harry and Harry deserved Joe. Her first marriage to Leonard Rossiter hadn't been as blissful I'm afraid but Joe wouldn't hear a word against Len. All that mattered was that he was simply sublime on stage and it was professional respect that clearly drew them together. In the first place one final thought on Joe and Len in 1956 they were appearing together though they were not yet married.
In Babes in the Wood (Salisbury Arts Theatre) Joe as Robin Hood, Len as the not so bad robber at the time Julian Slade was planning a follow-up to his hit musical Salad Days.
He got wind of a couple of talented young performers in the Salisbury Pinto. So we went to see them and promptly booked them for his new musical free as air. This opened at the Savoy the following summer and ran for a year. It must have been a wonderfully happy time for Joe and Len making their London debuts together and a few months after the show closed they married.
The marriage didn't run much longer than the show last but then again if it had done Joe would never have met Harry which would have been very sad. Here then is a song from free as air to remind us of those far-off days when the young Joe and Len must have felt free as air themselves with I've got my feet on the ground here's Nicola Keane and Michael Windsor.
We are the stories that we tell and the stories that are told of us. I loved Josephine's stories and when bright-eyed and bushy-tailed I became Rector of this Church in 2007 Joe would be always dragging me around the corner to her favourite Starbucks. There to regale me with her stories some warm and wonderful and generous stories about some of the fellow members of this congregation which were very useful to a then young rector finding his way in the terrifying waters of city of London Parish life.
Sometimes darker stories of personal tragedy that brought her into this community of faith here close to Saint Paul's Cathedral. But perhaps most of all those wonderful stories of the living theatre fun stories, times in rep unrepeatable stories of garrulous first night after parties at rules restaurant stories. Even of the Telly and her new legion of fans.
Joe was a star and everybody in this congregation knew that she added some kind of star power to our little Sunday Services. Here at Saint Vidast now you may or may not know that City churches are terribly competitive. There's so many of them in the square mile. There's always a kind of a one upmanship over who has the best music or who has the best bell ringers or who has the best coffee after church. And very often churches in the city hold what they call celebrity Carol services were some poor and unfortunate Dame or aged theater night is dropped in parachuted to read one of the nine lessons.
But as I often like to think here at Saint Vidast every Sunday was a celebrity service. Of course I like to think it was me they were coming from but it was basically Joe. She was here in this Church Sunday in and Sunday out. She was a constant authentic and smiling presence in this building and in the life of so many who usually worshipped here. She was the kind of star who did not constantly need to be told that she was a star. And there was nothing in fact that could be described as being showy about her.
She was someone who in this church simply got stuck in. Now how on Earth do you get stuck in in a city of London Church on a Sunday? Morning a place where no one lives a place, where people have to come to? How did Joe get stuck in in this Church?
Well she was an active member of the parochial Church Council and Father Paul will confirm that you know that can almost be a contradiction. In terms in the city but she was deeply involved in the PCC. In caring about the church during the ceremonies but also all of the surround the infrastructure that makes those magical occasions on a Sunday morning.
Possible she was even in memory. God loved her, remember God lover of something called the deanery synod. Now I can think of no worse way to spend a weekday evening than at a gathering of people in the city of London talking about things that don't appear terribly important in the deanery of the city but Joe wanted to be there.
And she went along and by that smiling presence she both made more bearable some rather dull evenings and soothed some rather fractious evenings. She of course read the lessons here in Church on a number of Sundays. She certainly always read them if we had what we would call a red letter day. A very important ceremony Joe was the only one I would really want to read in the presence of you know. A very important ceremonythat we were organizing but she took her responsibilities seriously.
And as Paul has mentioned a bit earlier she trained people to read from this little desk and Sunday by Sunday the members of this Church though perhaps they never reached the level of Radha. They were certainly encouraged to do so by gentle pointers and nudging into audibility and pronunciation. She directed most regularly every Palm on Sunday: The reading of the passion Gospel. I'm sure a number of people in Church have been to churches. On Palm Sunday were a very long Gospel reading is fractured and fragmented between four or more readers. We would of course do that every year and Josephine would I suppose one would have to say terrify people into being present for an early morning rehearsal. Then probably whip them around to Starbucks for some reviving coffee, then get them here where they would give their all in a way certainly, everyone would remember.
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