Edna Joan (Joan) Sykes (1917-1999), daughter of EJ and Selina Sykes, and William Vincent (Bill) Green (1914-1983) (fourth generation)

While working as the social writer on the Tribune newspaper in Melbourne, Joan Sykes attended the St. Pat's Old Boys Ball in Melbourne, and met Bill Green (Bill had been a boarder at St. Patricks in Sale). Bill was an industrial chemist. His parents (Michael Green and Isabella Cahir) lived in Geelong. Bill’s sister, Lena, remained single. Both Bill and Lena had pure Irish blood – his four grandparents had come from County Clare in Ireland around 1850, lured to Victoria by the goldrushes and pushed by the potato famine.

In the same year that Jean Loomes married Alan Roper, Joan married Bill Green at St. Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne on the 6th of April 1942. Joan Bowden, a schoolmate of Joan’s, was the bridesmaid. Vincent Foley, a new friend, who would remain one of Bill and Joan’s best friends (until his death in the 1990s) attended.

In 1942, the year he married, Bill changed jobs from Holeproof to Hilton hosiery. Bill and Joan had a brief honeymoon in Lorne, and moved into a rented weatherboard house in 14 Louisville street, Pascoe Vale South. In 1943 they moved into a brick home they had purchased at 18 Prendergast street also in Pascoe Vale South. Their first child, Wendy Anne Maria Goretti, was born that year.

In 1945 they moved to the Commercial Hotel in Wentworth; Peter Vincent was born in Mildura that year. In 1947 Michael James was born in Wentworth. In 1949 the family moved to a fruit block at Curlwaa, between the Lushes and the Macleod's blocks, and the Commercial was sold. Wendy started school at the Curlwaa State School, riding a mile or so on her bike when she was in Grade One. In 1950 a bus service to Wentworth began, and Wendy, Peter, and later Michael attended the St. Francis Xavier’s Convent school, where the Sister of Mercy nuns taught.

Bill and Joan purchased a piano from the Holdings, which Joan would play, and sing the hits from Oklahoma. An occasion causing great excitement was the purchase of a brand new powder blue Ford Prefect sedan.

They opened a milk bar in Dareton in 1952, next door to Frank Sheean's clothing shop. In 1953, both E.J. and Ken Ford died in Sydney, and in 1954 the Green family left the area, staying initially at Isabella Green's (Bill's mother's) house in Geelong, until they found a house to live in at 25 Doris street, Greensborough, where Joan's fourth child, Phillip, was born in 1959.
See the Sykes family tree for all descendants of Bill and Joan.

In 1983 Bill, aged 67, died of heart problems. On May 10th, 1999 Joan died of pneumonia , aged 82, within weeks of moving into a retirement home and attending the marriage of her first granddaughter, Anna Wilson to Scott Walker.

Bill and Joan, along with their son Michael, are buried in the Templestowe cemetery in Melbourne.