Joyce Frost

Joyce Hannah Frost (nee. Yorke; previously Redding) (b. 12th June 1945) has been a resident of North Grove her whole life.

Joyce is the only daughter of Dorothy and Francis Yorke, the wife of Phillip Frost, the mother of Tammy Redding and Melissa Saunders and the grandmother of Natalie Byrne and Ava Saunders.

Early Life
Joyce was born in her parents front room at the tail end of World War Two. Her mother and the midwife, Margaret Porter, were the only two present at her birth. Her father was killed in action when her mother was seven months pregnant and therefore she never knew who her father was.

Growing up it was only her and her mother as Dorothy had always said that Joyce's father was 'the only man she had ever loved and she would never love a man as much as she did he.' As her mother was a single mother, she was bullied relentlessly in school and she hated it. The only person who stuck up for her was her friend Vic Peters.

Early Adulthood
Joyce and Vic continued to be good friends and in 1962 the two began to date. For Joyce, it was a dream come true as she had always had a little crush on him. He was the man who used to pick her up when the nasty girls pushed her over and he was the one who fought the boys who called her mother nasty names. He had been a rock in her life and she could not believe her luck when he finally asked her out.

Their bliss lasted for a year when in 1963, Vic announced quite suddenly that he would be leaving for London to study Law. He asked Joyce to leave with him but she wouldn't leave her mother who would then have been alone.

Vic decided to leave anyway, not enjoying the confines that the small town held leaving Joyce heartbroken. Her mother consoled her but it was not enough. He was her only friend and he had left. She could not help but use him leaving as a comparison as her father leaving to fight in the war. She started to believe that men just left when something else came up and like her mother, vowed to never love another man again.

Her First Marriage
In 1965 the Redding brothers turned up in North Grove. They came from a neighbouring town after they found work building three tower blocks on the edge of town.

Norman Redding began to court a girl a few years older than Joyce named Wanda but it was Steven who caught her eye.

She refused to accept his offer of a drink for four months as she was still hurt by what Vic had done but with her mother steadily pushing her, she accepted and the two hit it off straight away.

She did not think that she would ever find love again but she did with Steven. She was still very wary of him and would not trust him for some time as she was not ready but she enjoyed his company. He was everything that Vic was not, he was humourous and not very intelligent. He liked to sit in the pub with his friends after work and have a laugh whereas Vic had always prefered to just sit in the park away from everyone else, which Joyce liked in her teenage years but now that the stigma of single mothers was slowly lifting, she did not feel as suffocated by her bullies and doubts.

In 1967, after two years of dating, Joyce married Steven in the little church. It was the perfect little wedding and started off as the perfect marriage. Joyce started to believe in herself and was encouraged by Steven to get a job that was being advertised at the local school for a secretary position. She had held odd jobs before but none for more than a few months and when she got the job she was ecstatic.

After two years of marriage, the couple still had no children and it began to annoy Steven who wanted them. Joyce was not quite ready and the two argued a lot on the subject. Joyce began to spend more time at the pub with her friends from work and one weekend in 1970, Steven stormed in and dragged her out of the pub by her arm hurting her.

The following week, Vic visited his parents for the first time since he left and it brought back memories of what they used to have. With everything going wrong at home, she sought after Vic and the two slept together. They spent the whole weekend in the bed of his hotel. On Sunday evening when she walked through their front door, Steven was sat on the sofa with his brother, wife and their son Daniel hovered around him.

When he spotted her, he brought her up in his arms and apologised for the way he had been behaving. He was worried after nobody had seen her since Friday night and he had feared the worst and was about to call on the police which was why his brother was there. She felt terribly guilty but she did not know how she could tell him.

Steven began to calm down and did not bring up the baby subject again and with him being so nice it only made Joyce feel ever worse about herself. She had begun to realise that Vic did not feel anything for her anymore and it made her feel like she had been used by him for a quick thrill and she knew that she had thrown away her marriage because of it.

In 1972, Joyce broke and told Steven that she had slept with Vic two years ago. He was heartbroken but he forgave her because he knew that he had pushed her away with all the talk of babies and hurting her.

Motherhood
In the autumn of 1972, Joyce fell pregnant. She and Steven saw the baby as a 'saviour baby' that would hopefully fill in the cracks that were starting to show in their marriage. Although Steven was ecstatic and happy that he was finally going to be a dad, Joyce hated it. She was twenty-seven years old but she still did not feel ready enough and was only going through with the pregnancy because she knew that it would save her marriage.

In April 1973, Tammy Redding was born. Joyce loved her daughter just as much as any mother but she did not feel a strong connection to her. She asked her mother to move in with them so that she would help with Tammy. With her mother's help, Joyce began to bond with Tammy more and by the time she was six months old they were as close as ever.

The baby however did not save their marriage. As much as Steven was trying, Joyce was not. She had given up trying to please Steven. He was always complaining at her and he brought up her affair with Vic constantly and it started to grate on her nerves as she had believed that it was over and done with.

Joyce moved back in with her mother in early 1973 and the couple finally divorced in 1975.

Second Marriage
In 1974, Vic returned to North Grove married and it made Joyce resent him. He was supposed to be a 'changed man' and everyone listened to him like he had never been away. Only his younger brother, Alan Peters and herself saw him for who he used to be and she refused to forgive him. After he had been home for three weeks, she pulled his wife to one side whilst drunk and told her all about their past. Sally, his wife just shrugged it off and told Joyce that she also had ex-boyfriends and that she did not care about what her husband used to do.

Joyce was put off by her comments and stopped trying to be nasty to everyone around her because of her failed marriage.

She learnt how to drive and once she had passed, she quit her job at the school and started a new job at an office in the city which she used to get away from the town. Her mother looked after Tammy while she went to work and it was while she was at lunch with some friends that she met Phillip Frost.

At the time she was still married to Steven but she sought solace in Phillip's arms regardless. She hated to feel alone and Phillip treated her like a Princess. Phillip moved to North Grove to be with her and the two married in 1976.

Her mother stood by her as she married him but apart from her and Tammy she had no one else there from her side. She had no friends in North Grove as they had all either bullied her or they were friends of Steven's and not actually hers.

Even though they had only been dating for nine months when they married, the marriage seemed more perfect to Joyce and the two have remained married.

In 1979, the couple had a daughter Melissa Frost. Joyce began to feel better within herself with her husband and two daughters. She also became friends with Paul and Pamela Dickinson who had a daughter Alyssa Dickinson I who was a similar age to Melissa.

Becoming a Grandparent
After years of living peacefully, horror struck Joyce when her fifteen year old daughter came home in late 1988 and announced that she was pregnant by her boyfriend Max Byrne. She did not know what to do and her mother was not very well at the time so she could not even turn to her. Even her friend Pamela had too much on her hands with her little girl battling leukemia.

She told Steven who was now married to Ruth McIntyre. Ruth also had two daughters from a previous marriage and she begged them to help her in dealing with Tammy as she did not know how to handle the situation.

Eventually, she sat Tammy down and told her that she would stick by whatever decision she wanted to do. She told her mother that she wanted to keep the baby and so Joyce was forced to accept it even though she did not initially believe that it was the correct choice as Joyce had always been reluctant to have children.

In May 1989, Tammy gave birth to a daughter Natalie with Joyce by her side.

Just like her mother had helped her, Joyce began to help Tammy with Natalie while she continued with school. Melissa enjoyed having the baby around the house and Phillip accepted the child as though it was his own grandchild.

Natalie brought a new life to Joyce that neither Tammy or Melissa had managed to fulfill completely and she began to understand the motherly love that she had read so much about. Even though she loved both of her daughters every much and would do anything for them she had never connected with them instantly like she did with Natalie. This made her feel guilty, like she had never loved her children and it took months for Phillip to convince her otherwise.

Although her daughter continued to date Max, she refused to let him in the house as the Byrne family were notorious in North Grove and although she did not like to stereotype like the children did when she was at school, she could not help it. She knew that she shouldn't do it, but everyone knew that there was something off about them and she did not trust the boy.

Twenty-two years passed between Joyce's two granddaughters. Melissa married Justin Saunders, who was the headteacher at the local high school in 2009 after they had been dating for three years and in 2011 they had Ava. Her two daughters are completely different in the way they lead their lives and yet she could not be more proud of them. They had both excelled in what they had both wanted to do and stayed friends in the process.

Tammy became an author and Melissa a reception teacher. Dorothy moved back in with Joyce and Phillip in 2005 after she fell and broke her hip but is still growing strong and Joyce now just enjoys looking after Ava while her parents work.

Family
Mother: Dorothy Yorke

Father: Francis Yorke

Husband: Phillip Frost

Daughters: Tammy Redding and Melissa Saunders

Grand-daughters: Natalie Byrne and Ava Saunders

Ex-Husband: Steven Redding (1967 - 1975)