Dreams of a Life

---

Some days you would get good

stories, others not so good.

When the story of Joyce

was brought back to the office,

I think there was

a stunned silence for a minute.

I don't think anyone had really heard

a story like that before.

Reporters always get asked,

"What's the best story you've done?"

Or the strongest story

or the worst story or whatever.

And this is my like clutch of ones

that you would remember

through a lifetime.

'You wanted to write it

and tell other people.

'That's that's the power of it, really.

'Ali said to me, "You go down

to the inquest and cover it."'

'We knew pretty quickly

that it was out of the ordinary.

'I worked at the paper for ten years

and there wasn't a story like it.

'There was such a remarkable lack

of information about Joyce Vincent.

'It was so hard

to find anything about her.'

Miss Vincent?

Miss Vincent,

we've a repossession order!

'It always struck me as strange

'how there's just swarms of thousands

of people going around their business,

'getting their shopping,

meeting their friends

'and all this time

there was a woman in the ats above

and nobody knew that she was there.

Trying to let her know

there's somebody at the door.

We've a repossession order!

'You really wanted

to find out more about this woman.'

It was a story that everyone wanted

but no one could get.

# Watch me fall from grace

# Disappear with no trace

# As I try to erase you

# Feel the pain and watch me bleed

# Surely this is not what I need #

Hello, it's Carol here, Carol Morley,

phoning about Joyce.

I'll try your mobile.

I'll try you again. Bye.

I'm looking for any infomation,

no matter how minor,

about Joyce Vincent.

'I was sitting at home one day

and I don't know if you do this,

'you just put someone's name

into Google.

'And I don't know what made me do it.

I just put Joyce's name in.

There was loads of links

to all these news stories.

I thought, "Ooh, that's a coincidence.

Someone else with Joyce's name."

'Then I scrolled down

and I saw your advert

'and I thought, "Oh, crikey.

It must be the same person."'

I got your email on Friends Reunited

asking, "Did I know Joyce Vincent?"

And straight away it was just

hairs up on the back of my neck, arms

and it was quite a shock, actually.

When you called I was at work

and I'd had a couple of missed calls,

anonymous calls,

and I thought they were my mum,

so I was just ignoring them.

Then I thought, "That's the fourth call.

I'd better take this one."

And the line broke a little bit,

so I was thinking,

"Did she just say Joyce is dead?"

Lots of people I've met

that knew her read the story

and didn't realise it was Joyce.

Really?

- They couldn't...

They didn't identify the victim - dead,

lonely, sad - with the Joyce they knew?

No.

- Isn't that interesting?

'It's even more interesting then.'

I was just amazed that

we'd not heard this from anybody

or nobody had realised.

How did they not know

from the electricity bills?

'I wrote to the utilities because I thought,

'normally if you don't pay your bill,

you get cut-off.

'I wrote to the local authority

because I thought,

"'Well, she must have had

council tax to pay."

'They sort of didn't want to know.

'They washed their hands of it.

"Nothing to do with us."'

- 'I found friends...'

- 'How did you find them?'

Because the police couldn't

and the authorities couldn't?

So how did you? Clever girl.

I mean, you'd like to think

that everyone's got someone

who would kind of look out for them.

'And it just seemed remarkable,

'given all the information

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