Joyce Purcell, who was honoured by the Queen for her work for the government, died on Friday in Germany, months before her 100th birthday.
Born in London, she was an early pioneer in studying English and Journalism at Kings College, London, going on to found a commission agency for writers.
She married Ronald Purcell, who later became chief scientific advisor to the Admiralty, and they had two daughters, one of whom, Anna, died of infantile septicemia aged 15.
Following her divorce in about 1950 she worked in the Houses of Parliament for 23 years as secretary to Sir Howard d’Eguville, who founded and ran the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.
He also founded the British American Parliamentary Group, which she ran after his retirement, organising conferences in the US and in the UK for the Foreign Office, the work that led to her MBE.
During her time in London she became very involved with Sufi Master Pir Vilayat Khan, who she worked with for many years.
She was given the Sufi name Rabia, and moved to Bradford on Avon in the 1980s, where she set up a community to study philosophy, healing and Sufism which inspired many people.
In 1993 she moved to live with her daughter Stephanie in Germany, but after two years she missed her friends in Bradford so much that she returned. She remained until in her 90s she became too frail to live alone and returned to Germany.
She also leaves five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Following a blessing service at her daughter’s home on Sunday she was cremated on Tuesday.
Thank you for this picture of Rabia. It does bring back some early memories!
Back in 1970 Joyce Purcell seemed to be the pillar around which the Sufis of London, and possibly Great Britain revolved. She was almost the first Sufi I ever met, paving the way to a connection with Pir Vilayat.
My mother took me to a meditation gathering at Joyce’s house in London when I was 17. I remember admiring a translucent glass candle holder that was a statue of Mary. I believe I returned several times and over the next few years we attended the occasional event with Pir Vilayat in London . As far as I was aware, these occasions were organized by Rabia, and I used to think she was like a mother hen, fussing over everyone, and making sure that everything went smoothly. Looking back, I realize that she extended a wonderful friendly hospitality to every new person and made us all feel welcomed.
As she moved to the newly forming community in Bradford on Avon, and I moved to the newly forming community in America, I have not seen her since 1975!!
Thank you Rabia, for that early encouragement …..
Rabia’s last day on the 7000 ft. mountaintop of Sommet Bucher, Chateau Queyras, in the French Alps was a Saturday in late July 1978 and also my first day arriving there then. We might have even passed on a grassy flowery pathway there that hot sunny afternoon. Little did I know that I would request initiation from her the next January, on a full moon night, at Hunter’s Comb, Turliegh, near Bradford-on-Avon, just the 2 of us, alone in the house on the second floor. She queried me as to whether or not I wouldn’t prefer to have Pir Vilayat do it, and I said “No, you are the one.” I was at her centre there at Barton Farm for 3 years in what may be termed its hey day. I was her assistant editor for her quarterly “Flute” magazine, and represented her interests during lead-up to the World Symposium on Humanity in April. She would get cross with us if there was no one for meditation in the chapel every morning. I suppose I must write this all down someday, because it would take up too much space here. Suffice it to say that she was my sheikh (she said it was a duty station, not a sheikha personality) and we kept up telephonically and by mail in the succeeding years. I took her to her last Alps camp with her daughter Steph doing the driving, in 1996. She was able to see Pir Vilayat one last time. She was the one who helped to get the Alps camps started with donations of british army tents, and she would often regale me with stories about things such as when Pir left the jewel of the order in a washroom and they had to drive back across England to get it, and “when Pir had no shoe leather”. She was instrumental in assisting Pir with organizing the early “mystic and scientists conferences,” which continue to this day. Her mother was one of the early theosophists, and she saw murshid at 14, and she drove and fixed race cars in the 30’s with her boyfriend, the great automotive photographer Louis Klemantaski. She was with Krishnamurti for 20 years before coming to Pir Vilayat. When she received her MBE from the Queen she was told not to speak to the queen in the line of awardees, but the Queen wheeled in one Joyce and spent more than 5 minutes discussing their exploits as drivers during the war. Rabia drove fire engines during the blitz, just imagine…. I have her pictures in my room and on my desk 3 ft. away, she is standing in her garden, encircled by smiling children, and looking jolly well wonderfully happy. She passed I think, just before her 100th because, I would imagine, she wouldn’t have wanted all of her devoted friends to be put out coming to Germany for her birthday. She was an Eastern Star mason, a color therapist, a masseuse, and a just wonderful wonderful person. She lost one of her two daughters as a child. And she said that one never gets over that. We once met for a silent house full group at Irina Tweedy’s, neither of us knowing that the other would be there. She kept up with politics and local/global events. She healed me on the spot once, and protected me often. I was truly devoted to her, and still am in an entirely overboard way, and though it was only she and I as card carrying sufi aspirants in the early days, by then end of my stay we had established 4 other groups and were busily spreading the message hither and yon. I would have never left her, of course, but the British immigration caught me coming back from the alps without any visible means of support and gave me a week to go pack up my stuff and return to America, and the rest is history, … that I still must write, … and I will….
I met Joyce in the early 70’s in her house in Wimbledon. I wanted to do some meditation and a friend Tim Field recommended I visit her. I remember clearly her opening the door, her smile, her warmth. ‘I don’t want anything to do with religion,’ I said, ‘just to meditate and be calm.’ She invited me in. That meeting opened my heart to kindred spirits, especially that of Hazrat Inayat Khan through his teachings. I have never looked back. I saw Joyce from time to time in Bradford on Avon and just before she went to live with her daughter. She was a light in my life.
I was a young man of twenty-three, burned out from exhaustion, travel weary and half crazy from trying to break down the gates of heaven with ego and excess. My travels had led me to the kitchen door of Barton Farm in Bradford on Avon. The door was opened by Rabia.
I too remember her warmth as she welcomed me into the kitchen (at that time she was living in the old house- a little room at the very top of the building). She looked at me and I knew that she instinctively knew of the muddle I was in. The weeks I spent with her have stayed with me for all of my life. Rabia did not instruct, she led. She would lead small meditation groups in the evenings and speak of the teachings of her beloved Pir Vilayat. We would sometimes dance and lose ourselves in Zkhirs. We would spend those cold winter days in the warm kitchen of Barton Farm, baking bread and preparing the food for the volunteer workers who were working on the renovation project. Simply spending those weeks in her warm and loving presence began a process of healing that in time led to the complete dissolution of all that I thought was real.
Rabia left the farm (It was just too cold) and went to live with Michael and Jessica a few miles down the road in Turleigh. I moved on. We did not keep in contact but our paths did cross many years later. We drank tea together and I told her how significant the weeks I had spent with her had been to my life. She simply smiled and said “Yes I know my dear ”
So. Thank you Rabia, dear Joyce. Thank you for introducing me to the spirit of Hazrat Inyat Khan, he led me to India and to Music. Thank you for introducing me to Pir Vilyat whose warmth, humour and wisdom taught me fearlessness. And thank you for the role you played in my own destruction. I love you.
dear Joyce .. I miss you so much ..
it was the first time I met you on Bartonfarm 1977 .. with my friend Frauke . She told me .. take care you will meet a real Lady .. and take attention she will speak to you into your dreams ..
and than I met dear <joyce .. red nailed fingers .. with her dog a collie you allowed me often to make some dog walks with her , A tiny porcelain dog figure you gave to me is still on my desk .. I m so thankful to be so near to you quite often .. I hope you travel so lively through universe as you drove your car .. and please do some stops here on earth . your spirit is so needed .. I love you