Joyce is a TV star

Joyce, 80 was happy to be interviewed for the programme about donating her body for medical research.

But it was the request by the London film makers of "Can you come tomorrow" that put her in a spin.

"It really gave me a shock," said Joyce, of Reginald Road, who had not been on a train for more than 20 years.

"I used to travel but gave up on that. I don't even go as far as Sidley."

But with the assurance that she would be met at Victoria by the associate producer holding a sign with her name on it so she would spot her, Joyce set off on the early morning train last Friday.

She was duly met and was whisked away by private taxi to the east end and the unglamorous studios tucked up a cobbled alleyway off Curtain Road in London's Shoreditch area.

Several flights of stairs later, Joyce was asked to wait in the staff "leisure" room as an interview was in progress. She was offered a cup of coffee but there was no session in "makeup".

Programme makers, Firefly Productions, are producing the documentary for More 4 TV about the shortage of body donors in the UK.

It has been eight years since Joyce signed up to give her body to HM Inspector of Anatomy when she has no further need of it.

"It's another means of recycling," Joyce told presenter Dr John Marsden. "I am not a religious person so just to bury my body or cremate it seemed such a waste."

She was asked how she had heard about body donation and Joyce, a former nurse, said she could not really remember. "I think I have always known about it."

She was unfazed by being confined in the tiny studio with a cameraman, a lighting technician, director David Coleman and the presenter who all thought Joyce was "a star".

"They were very nice," said Joyce.

She will be seen alongside contributions from Dr Gunther von Hagens, the controversial anatomist who was seen dissecting real bodies in a previous production for Channel 4.

Firefly Productions is a relative new company launched two years ago specialising in "provocative, difficult, peak-time films" which have also included The Tony Martin Story about the Norfolk farmer who shot and killed a burglar.

The film makers are hoping the programme, entitled Your Country Needs You and expected to be broadcast next month, possibly June 19, will raise interest in the subject and encourage potential donors.

It sets out to explain why body donations are needed and why there might be a shortage of body donors in the UK.

"They don't just take any body. You have to be healthy when you die!" said Joyce.

Some of the reasons for not accepting a bequest include dementia, severe arthritic deformity, and recent operations where the wound has not healed.

Joyce, who won the Observer's Golden Heart award in 1982, ran Lawn Court Mental After Care Home with her late husband Sandy for 21 years.

Like the late Spike Milligan who always said he would have the inscription on his headstone "I told you I was ill," Joyce said:

"Not that I will have one, but if I was to have a memorial stone it would say "Can you come tomorrow! I will never forget that."