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Honorary Master of Arts, 2002
Bio | Citation

Joan Beard is the former Chair of Essex County Council, founder of the Dyslexia Institute in Chelmsford and dedicated servant of the local community. A prominent member of Essex County Council for over 20 years, she played an active role on numerous committees as well as serving as Vice-Chair of the Community Safety Board and Chair of the Fire and Public Protection Committee. In addition to her work with the County Council she also has a distinguished record of voluntary service, particularly in areas related to mental health and dyslexia. She was a founder member of the Dyslexia Institute in Chelmsford and the local MIND group. Joan has been involved with Anglia Ruskin for many years, providing valuable advice and guidance in connection with the work of County Council committees, and she has long been an advocate of extending mental health services into the University's student services.

In 2002 Joan Beard was awarded the honorary degree of Master of Arts.

Areas Of Interest: Local Government, Charity Sector
Faculty: No particular faculty affiliation
Citation:

"The Senate of Anglia Polytechnic University has great pleasure in recommending the award of an Honorary Master of Arts degree to Joan Beard, former Essex County Councillor, stalwart champion of both the Dyslexia Foundation and the leading mental health charity in this country: MIND and ardent reader of detective novels.

Today we honour Joan, who was Chairman of the Essex County Council at the time of the millennium, who has given distinguished public service in local government over a period of twenty years, through her determination put the Dyslexia Association and MIND on the map in this region and has proved a great supporter of The University over many years. She is, also, an alumna of this University and a former lecturer.

She was born on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, but adopted at an early age by a Royal Navy family such that her life up to the age of five, is remembered through the smells of ships as she was transported between the UK and Gibralta or Malta according to her father's latest postings. The family then settled in Gillingham when her father became a civil servant. Here, Joan went to Chatham Technical Girls High School, was evacuated to a farm in Wales for a year in 1940/41 but because she missed her family, returned home "...just in time for the bombing..." In 1949 she began her PTS (Preliminary - nursing - Training School) at the (now Royal) London Hospital in Whitechapel. Here, she became a regular attender of the dances organized by Matron (affectionately nick-named Miss Wooley Bags) who thoughtfully invited into this matriarchal environment, her nephews and their male friends. One such was John, whom she met at one memorable Christmas night dance.

Joan qualified as a Staff Nurse, then pursued a course on midwifery at Perivale Hospital, on the other side of London from Whitechapel (twenty tube stations away, according to John who was still reading electrical engineering at Queen Mary College, near to the London Hospital). However, she married him in 1954 (...48 years ago!) when he had started to work at the Marconi company, here, in Chelmsford.

Time came when Joan felt that she wanted to expand her experience. She undertook part time "rescue nursing" in Chelmsford and well remembers the Chelmsford Hospital closing down and she nursed the nurses who were suffering from Asian flu, in the late nineteen fifties. Later, she saw an advertisement for a "technical teachers' certificate" provided at "the Tech" as a one-year course for university graduates, was accepted with her Nursing Certificate and qualified to teach on a Home Economics course at "the Tech", which in due course has become APU. After ten years of this Joan sought yet a further challenge and became a part-time phlebotomist in the Haematology Department of St John's Maternity Hospital, for ten years of course, where the interpersonal skills of nurses were much valued.

However, it was becoming increasingly apparent to Joan, that three of her four children were dyslexic, as were their cousins on their father's side and so, they sought wisdom from psychologists at the Coram's Field Centre, in London. Joan's youngest son was diagnosed, also, as dyspraxic (unable to make co-ordinated movements as required to climb a tree, ride a bike or swim). She was spurred on by this to co-found Essex Dyslexia Association in which she was very active. This supportive organization educates parents and teachers, explaining that dyslexic children are neither stupid nor lazy. However, Joan's determination that dyslexic children and adults be treated properly, led also to her support of the establishment of the Dyslexia Institute, which addresses the core problems of training teachers to teach dyslexic students. This organization has flourished so well in mid-Essex that every school in the county is currently equipped to diagnose and respond appropriately to dyslexic children.

Meanwhile, again prompted by personal experience, Joan became involved with a group of like-minded folk (including Professor Chris Green) in the Mental Health Forums held at the APU School of Nursing and out of which developed a passion to be involved in the co-founding of the Chelmsford branch of MIND.

Over the course of her rich career, Joan's determination and passion have greatly helped the Dyslexia Association and MIND, in the specific, but they have also helped to establish among regional and national authorities, the principle that voluntary organizations need to be taken seriously. Her long association with mental health in the voluntary sector in the region and her outstanding example of public service in local government, culminating in her appointment as Chairman of Essex County Council, together with her experience as student and teacher, here, have led to her becoming both a valued and valuable friend of APU.

It is for these reasons, therefore, that I invite you, Vice-Chancellor, to confer on Joan Beard an Honorary Master of Arts degree of this University."

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