A National Treasure 100-year-old volunteer Joan Capel
100 year-old Joan Capel demonstrates that age is no barrier to voluntary work!
This is a busy year for special centenaries – and one greatly admired volunteer at National Trust property Erddig in Wales has marked her own 100 years by sharing her recipe for keeping youthful.
“I volunteered at Erddig to keep me active in retirement and have been repaid a hundredfold,” says Joan. “My philosophy for life is that the woman who works and is not bored, is never old and I intend to repay Erddig by spending my centenary in 2018 still serving it.”
Joan has been a volunteer at the 17th century mansion for more than 26 years, firstly as a house steward and then becoming involved in setting up and running the bookshop which opened around 15 years ago.
“I am not a native of this area and when I saw in the paper about the Prince of Wales opening this National Trust property I said, “I’ve never heard of it, let’s have a go.” So I visited and liked it and then came fairly regularly.
“I spread my favours a little bit with other properties nearby but at Erddig they served proper, real, honest-to-goodness, eatable food. When you’d had a meal here you felt you’d been fed and so this was the one that I came to most often.
“In the beginning I volunteered because I thought Erddig was rather a nice place and it was worth anything I could do for it. I thought it might be interesting. I still think it is a nice place and I miss it, the days that I don’t do. It is a job worth doing, it is intellectually satisfying.
“I work with pleasant people and nowadays, while I like the history side of it I probably come here more for the company. This keeps me in touch with people – and people that I like – and I approve of it as a thing.
“I get bored easily but I don’t get bored here. What is there not to like? And I am fond of books. I try very hard not to buy too many. I don’t buy as many as I used to. I don’t, honestly!”
Joan has seen plenty of change over the decades, especially relating to opportunities for women.
“I grew up in the 20s and we had no idea of the changes that were coming
“My philosophy? The woman who works and is not bored is never old”
with the war, of course. Life was very different to what it is now. You couldn’t get away with the things you can now. In some ways women have got a lot more independent and in some ways we are treated a lot less well.
“When I was young, if there was a woman standing in a bus while there were men seated, the woman would have been horrified to be left standing. Probably most of the men would give their seat
up for a woman. They would hold a door open for a woman. They weren’t important things but they did make life a lot pleasanter.
“With independence, women have lost a lot of the feeling of being looked after, which I admit I am enjoying here at Erddig. They nag me, but I am looked after!
“The role of women has changed beyond all recognition; it is a different world. We have gained some things, we have lost some things. We have gained in the opportunities we have.
“For instance, if I had said to my father ‘I’d like to be a journalist’ [he’d have said] ‘Oh, you can’t do that!’ There were three jobs open to educated women; you could be a schoolteacher – which I liked but didn’t approve of; you could be a nurse – which I would never have done – or you could be a secretary. The opportunities for women are out of this world compared to what they were.”
Joan followed the secretarial route, working around the UK before settling in Wales and ultimately living a fulfilling retirement through her voluntary work at Erddig. She has plenty of good advice.
“I had opportunities that I didn’t take because I hadn’t the confidence. So have confidence in yourself. Do your own thing, within limits.
“Make up your own mind what you want and if it is really important, try and stick to it – that’s not advice that I have taken for myself, not really, but I think it is good advice. And just because a job is easy, don’t think you don’t have to work hard at it. I could have done a lot better than I did – goodness knows what I might have done if I had actually worked. I would probably have gone to Cambridge, I was a clever little girl and I wasted it.
“On the other hand, I have enjoyed most of my life!”