Wyndham, Joan 1921-2007
Wyndham, Joan 1921-2007
OBITUARY NOTICE—
See index for CA sketch: Born October 11, 1921, in London, England; died April 8, 2007, in London, England. Journalist, critic, and author. Wyndham was best remembered for her four published diaries about her years during and after World War II. Her Love Lessons: A Wartime Diary (1985) describes her days at the Chelsea School of Art in London just before the war. The author pursues a bohemian lifestyle, and much of the book involves titillating passages about her burgeoning sexuality. She also talks about her time in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force as a flight officer. The racy passages about her experiences with sex became a theme for her later publications, too, including Love Is Blue: A Wartime Diary (1986), Anything Once (1992), and Dawn Chorus (2004). The works were popular for their humor and tales of a young woman's relationships in a world torn by global war. The later works also talk about the 1960s and Wyndham's experimentations with drugs. Wyndham went through two marriages over the years, and in the early 1970s was a restaurant cook and owner. From 1975 to 1985 she was a journalist, travel writer, and food critic. Toward the end of her life, Wyndham suffered from cancer and had several strokes.
OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Times (London, England), April 14, 2007, p. 74.