The Dennys family returned to Britain in 1886. Dennys enjoyed drawing lessons throughout her schooling and later enrolled at Exeter Art School.
Joyce was studying art when the First World War broke out. She volunteered to join the Voluntary Aid Detachment but, as she was too young to qualify as a VAD nurse, Joyce worked initially at General Duties at the Red Cross Auxiliary Hospital in Budleigh Salterton from December1914 - December 1915. Joyce said ‘All I ever did was to wash up plates and dishes, knives and forks. I had never done anything of the kind before because those were the days of servants, and in spite of being so poor, my parents had two.’
Sometime around 1915, Joyce drew the artwork for a VAD poster, used nationally to recruit women to Voluntary Aid Detachment work.
In early 1916, Joyce passed the Red Cross examinations to become a nurse and went to work at Hospital No. 2 in Exeter. Joyce’s friend Mary Tindall began composing humorous verses to accompany Joyce’s paintings. Joyce approached a publisher and their work was accepted and published. ‘Our Hospital ABC’ represents not only the alphabet but also the Australian (Anzac), British and Canadian soldiers who were treated at Hospital No.2 in Exeter.
“When we took it in turns to do night duty (…) I would get out my candle and my paint box and paint all night. The night surgeon said, “I really think that little nurse might wait ‘til I’ve finished my rounds.”’
In 1919 Dennys married Thomas Cann Evans, a young doctor who had been in Australia in 1914 and and who had been a major in the Australian Army Medical Corps. Joyce and Tom moved to Australia. While living in New South Wales, Joyce's work was constantly in print and exhibited in many galleries. In 1922, the family moved back to Britain and settled in Budleigh Salterton, Devon. Joyce studied at the London Art School and continued to paint, draw and publish for the rest of her life. In 1926, painter Joyce Dennys (1893–1991) and writer Edmund George Valpy Knox, aka Evoe (1870 – 2 January) collaborated on A Winter Sports Alphabet.
Joyce died in London in 1991 and was cremated. Her ashes were scattered off the coast of Budleigh Salterton.
Sources:
https://flashbak.com/joyce-dennys-and-edmund-knoxs-winter-alphabet-1926-368910/
http://www.devonremembers.co.uk/content/ww1-stories/nurse-artist-and-author
http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2013/03/more-joyce-dennys-paintings-on-display.html
https://www.bloomsbury.com/author/joyce-dennys
https://www.modernbritishartgallery.com/works__A_722__.htm
