Bournemouth couple’s legacy lives on through charitable partnership

The Joy and Lance Collier Fund was set up in 2016 by the late couple’s daughters — Birdie, Anne and Janet — to honour their mother’s support for charities in Dorset.

When Joy Collier passed away in 2014, her children discovered that she had been supporting over 30 local charities, so they partnered with Dorset Community Foundation (DCF) to set up a fund. Now the daughters are looking back and celebrating a decade of charitable giving.

Joy and Lance met at a dance during the Second World War. Despite Joy’s resistance to dating a soldier, Lance did not give up and the couple were married in 1945, two days before VE Day. But his resilience didn’t stop there; after losing his job at a local news kiosk, Lance opened a shop of his own called Collier’s Corner in Tuckton and, in due course, bought all the shops in the row.

Meanwhile, Joy went on to train as a teacher after her time at Talbot Heath School in Bournemouth and eventually went on to specialise in helping children who struggled to read. Her daughter, Birdie Collier, said: “In those days, there were no special arrangements so she ended up teaching in cloakrooms, but she loved it and the children loved her.”

After being happily married for almost 60 years, Lance died aged 85 in 2004. Joy died 10 years later, aged 93. Birdie explained: “Mum wanted to give a large proportion of her money to charity and we found out about Dorset Community Foundation’s funds, so we used her money and some that Dad had left us to set it up.”