I apologise first of all for this post being late, as I want to do these weekly but am a week behind so they may be two of these posts this week. It is my Inspiring Stories post where I like to share those that have inspired me, and this week it is Aunty Joany Sims. She looked like my Nan Rose, but that is because they were related, I know someone will dispute that but it is true. I loved her.

She was a stunning woman and was destined to be a star. She was a rarity in that she went to stage school, the first one ever to be build and created in England and in London, and what made her so wonderful she never forgot her routes and is a girl from my own neck of the woods being family, Chelsea London.

Here she is with her on screen son Dennis Waterman and was taken in between filming and why Uncle Dennis and Aunty Joan could have been mother and son for real. Her charactor Mrs Wembley, stood out like a lot of her roles she played and where she would say her famous catchphrase as Mrs Wembley “Just The One”, and was one of her favourite programmes she done and why she loved being in comedies rather than serious shows.

I’d like to say for the record was one of the people who I saw make it and helped me believe I would one day too. She was a local girl and loved performing in bars and clubs, and was never tarty in anyway and was very much a womans woman, who believes elegance was better.

Aunty Joan was like Uncle Bark in that she could play very wellspoken posh roles and typical London girl roles and loved her cups of tea and her tiple “G&T” (Gin and Tonic) just like my Nan, on my dads side and wrote many of the scripts for her characters, if she felt they needed to be tweaked and liked to blend in a show than just put in as a special star guest.

She like many actors and actresses began on stage doing many plays like the first stage production of “My Fair Lady”, “Oliver Twist” and “Me and My Girl”. She did suffer like me with lack of self confidence, but she never allowed it to effect her acting and would literally click into charactor as soon as she passed the stage curtain onto the stage.

Like those who love being on stage, saw it as her second home and became second nature, it was mainly Press photos and interviews she struggled with, and even up to when she was was middle aged, found these difficult as she felt comfortable when in charactor than being herself off stage in front of cameras.

In the Carry on films she was very weary at first because of sharing any nudity, and stated that she would be happy to be in the films but remain fully clothed in the films and became one of the well known faces of those films. Sid James saw her as a sister along with Kenneth Williams and many others in those films and was able to have a private life aswell.

She liked being mum and aunty to her family and being a normal Londoner and have a Roast Dinner on a Sunday.

Aunty Joan was very much grounded woman and never let fame get the better of her and embraced it at the same time. She did attract many fellow actors but even this didn’t stop her from having a normalish life and that what set her above the rest.

I loved her and idolised her a lot. She could sing, dance and act, and when she did she lit up every theatre, film and production she ever set herself in.

She was a wonderful woman and had a brilliant personality and it was seen when she performed and will be known as the “Woman who always shone on camera”. Here are some of her wonderful roles on TV.

I will be back again this week with another star who inspired me, and memory lives on.

Many thanks for reading,

Carrie (L.M) X

P.S: If you would like to read my other Inspiring stories written so far, up to this one then here they are below: