The Hackney childhood of Led Zeppelin’s veteran accountant Joan Hudson was recalled in a eulogy given at her funeral by a childhood friend during her funeral on February 2.
Bill Martin, who would later work as an official at the European Commission, also grew up in Hackney and spoke at the funeral.
“Joan kept her integrity, her humility, her honesty and her religious beliefs and ethics,” Martin said during the funeral.
Martin has given LedZepNews permission to share his remarks which give further information on Hudson’s life following a separate eulogy given by Led Zeppelin’s lawyer George Fearon which LedZepNews has also published.
Hudson, who died aged 87 on December 31, was Led Zeppelin’s devoted accountant who was the band’s longest-serving employee. Key figures from the world of Led Zeppelin including Robert Plant and Fearon attended her funeral.
Along with Martin’s eulogy, which you can read in full below, tributes to Hudson have also been paid by Led Zeppelin’s office manager Unity MacLean.
“Joan was the lynchpin of a dynamic organisation carefully handling millions of pounds and dollars,” MacLean told LedZepNews. “As a quiet, calm accountant she understood the demands of working with a band with the vast income and assets of Led Zeppelin.”
“Like Peter Grant she came up through the ranks and never developed any airs and graces,” she continued. “I regularly asked for company financial advice large and small. She always took my calls and carefully gave optimum advice, paid close attention to detail and made sure I understood the answer. Joan was a remarkable and unpretentious member of a great company and a huge contributor to Led Zeppelin’s financial success.”
The President of Virginia Theological Seminary, which awarded Hudson and her husband Doug Hiza with its Dean’s Cross award in 2017, also paid tribute to Hudson.
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D., Dean and President of Virginia Theological Seminary, said in a statement to LedZepNews: “Virginia Theological Seminary remembers the gift of Joan Hudson. She was recognized for her service as a person of faith to the music industry when we awarded her with the Dean’s Cross for Servant Leadership at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, VA. Her legacy is significant. She was a pioneer of a new approach to music financial management; she was a voice of counsel to countless friends and colleagues; and she loved life – living it to the full.”
St John of Jerusalem, the London church where Hudson’s funeral was held, has published an online fundraising link to raise money to create a stained glass window in the church in memory of Hudson.
Read the full text of Martin’s eulogy below:
I have known Joan for 82 years and want to express how important and influential she was for me.
As a child, listening to conversations between my mother Nellie and her friend Olive who was Joan’s aunt, I never heard Joan mentioned without the description “very clever”. By the age of 5, I knew that Joan was a school hot shot and was going places. But where did intelligent girls go in the 1950s to get ahead. Particularly coming from bomb strewn, abandoned Hackney.
There were few opportunities and plenty of prejudices against female opportunities in the professions. A worthy but unexciting career beckoned. But Joan beat them all with her amazing skills, financial and diplomatic and became the hidden heroine of British rock n roll and made a giant leap to huge success in the States and the world.
Olive and Nellie knew something about cockney cleverness. And in spite of being linked to the amazing world of music, Joan kept her integrity, her humility, her honesty and her religious beliefs and ethics. In a long career, these never left her. What a wonderful, inspiring person.
Whenever I needed another viewpoint, I knew I could rely on Joan for common sense and judgment. She was what the media would call “a national treasure“ – though because of her ability to be self effacing, most of the media will not be aware of her achievements until now.
She knew her strength came from not seeking the limelight. And now she is in a better place, at rest. We will miss her as will all those who worked with her and all those who she helped in her charitable works throughout the world.
The road from Hackney was never an easy one but Joan took it with success and she retained her loyalty to the borough by being there and contributing actively to its daily life with her husband Doug Hiza. What a wonderful partnership. God bless Joan.
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