Joe joined the army in 1956, aged sixteen, as a boy soldier at Bovington. He soon became aware that most of his colleagues in what was then called the Boy’s Squadron Royal Armoured Corps (a precursor of the Junior Leaders Regiment) had never seen a black boy before and were nervous in his presence.
Some chose to pick on him and over the next two years he was subjected to more than one incident of racism, some of it violent. The bullies had however picked on the wrong target. Within months of joining Joe had not only won many boxing bouts in various Dorset clubs but had become the National Boy’s Clubs flyweight champion.
He excelled too at football, athletics, cricket, basketball, hockey and cross-country running and, crucially, his love of music and rhythm led him to learn to play the drums. As a potential adult recruit he became much sought after, coming particularly to the notice of an instructor, one Lieutenant Brian Kenny of the 4th Hussars– later to become General Sir Brian Kenny and no mean sportsman himself – who played with Joe in the Dorset county hockey team. Kenny persuaded Junior Trooper Joseph to join his regiment and he was posted after two years to Hohne, in West Germany.
From the day of his arrival, he was a marked man and was soon a key component of practically every sports team fielded by the regiment, Now a soldier on the tank park and a member of the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars after the amalgamation which gave birth to that regiment, Joe volunteered to be a physical training instructor, a job for which he was eminently fitted. But it was not enough: music was a great love and he asked for a transfer into the band where, as a now married man, he felt his career prospects were better than in the gymnasium or tank park.
In 1962 the regiment arrived in Malaysia and Joe was given full support in all his sporting endeavours, representing Perak state in cricket, football and hockey as well as winning athletics events in Inter-State and Commonwealth Forces competitions, culminating in being crowned decathlon champion in the Malaysian Games of 1963.
First and foremost though Joe was an important and popular member of the band, progressing smoothly up the ranks while continuing to represent the regiment in many sporting competitions in both BAOR and the United Kingdom, including playing a key part in winning Cavalry Cup football teams and as captain, leading the regimental athletics team to the BAOR final – the only non-corps team to achieve such a feat. Musically he was in the forefront of the successful efforts made by the Irish Hussar band to be among the very best in the army. In 1980, having been Band Sergeant-Major for several years and having regretfully turned down the offer of a commission he retired after twenty-two years of unbroken service, all of them at regimental duty. By that time he had become a military sporting legend as an all-round athlete. As a civilian, he first moved to Milton Keynes to run the Bletchley Leisure Centre and then back to Guyana (formerly British Guiana) the land of his birth, where for many years he headed a school for disadvantaged children before he was politically hounded out and returned to England.
Joe was immensely proud of being an Irish Hussar and the regiment reciprocated in spades, always giving him its full support in all his endeavours. To Karin, his first wife, to Jane his widow and his children and grandchildren go our deepest sympathy for the loss of a truly remarkable human being.
