Joan Jackson

Who was Joan Jackson?

Joan Jackson, née Joan Hunter Dunn was the muse of Sir John Betjeman in his poem "A Subaltern's Love-song".

She was the daughter of Dr George Hunter Dunn, a GP from Farnborough, Hampshire. Her grandfather, Andrew Hunter Dunn, was Bishop of Quebec from 1892 to 1914, and her uncle Edward Dunn was Bishop of British Honduras and Archbishop of the West Indies. A great-great-grandfather was William Hunter, Lord Mayor of London in 1851-52. 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: