Kate Thompson takes a peek into the wardrobe of retired nurse Joyce Lawrence, who has kept every piece of clothing she has ever owned...

HERE is a woman who can never stare hopelessly at her wardrobe and wail 'I've got nothing to wear.'

Quite simply, Joyce Lawrence, 77, from Southampton has literally hundreds of outfits and accessories collected over a lifetime and lovingly kept in her city home.

Sitting in Joyce's bedroom surrounded by evening gowns, cocktail dresses and bags of shoes, it's clear the former nurse, who worked in the operating theatre at Southampton General Hospital for 19 years, is a woman who just loves clothes.

She and her husband Ralph were invited to many parties as a consequence of his job in shipping so Joyce had the perfect excuse for dressing up.

"It was wonderful. We were always going to dances and cocktail parties - I loved it.

"Dressing up was a release - it was nice to get out of my nursing uniform and put on some pretty clothes.

"I loved the whole process of it - having my bath, doing my make-up, choosing my clothes and the accessories like jewellery and gloves.

"I have always really liked clothes and it was great to be able to dress up to go out.

"I always thought it was a compliment to your host that you had made an effort and dressed up," said Joyce.

Her interest in clothes dates back to her teens. During the war years, new clothes were hard to come by and Joyce spent many a happy hour at the cinema admiring the outfits worn by the starlets of the day.

The only way Joyce could get a new dress was to save up her coupons - and she can still recall the first dress she laid her hands on.

"It was pale blue crepe with a cowl neckline and quite fitted with cuffed sleeves and a necklace made of white beads - I thought I was the bee's knees in it.

"I had a half day off at work and I decided to go to the cinema in my new dress - I felt really good in it.

"But while I was there somebody leant across with a cigarette in their hand and burned a hole in it - I was absolutely devastated.

"I did manage to repair it though by taking some material from the seam," she said.

The austerity of the war years taught Joyce to make do and mend - and it was that outlook that has probably led to her keeping her clothes. She has some items dating back to the 1950s but the majority are from the 60s onwards.

She loved keeping up with the latest styles - and could even run up her own dresses when she couldn't find what she wanted at the shops.

"If something wasn't worn out you certainly didn't throw it away - we weren't a throwaway society in those days," she said.

Joyce began her nursing career at a nursing home in Woking and was paid the princely sum of £2 a month.

During the war years she wore black lisle stockings for work, but it was the Du Pont nylons that were the most prized.

"I've still got a pair of them upstairs somewhere," conceded Joyce. "It was during the war that women started to wear trousers for work - my first pair were a horrid grey flannel."

She has many favourite outfits. One of her most treasured is a chic black dress with black lace top.

"I always felt really good in it - it was the sort of outfit you could dress up or down depending on the occasion," she said.

Protected by plastic bags, Joyce still has the shoes she walked down the aisle in more than 50 years ago and the sturdy brown pair she bought during her honeymoon in Wimborne.

She even has a pair of stitched gros-grain dancing shoes that must easily be 60 years old.

Joyce always had a good eye for a bargain - she never spent too much on her frocks and made sure she scoured the sales for some knockdown items.

"I have always had a good eye for colour - I could buy a pair of shoes and then ages later I would spot a bag that would match them so I would buy that.

"I have only ever bought what I could afford. I never had a credit card or anything like that - if I wanted something I had to save for it," she said.

Even into her 70s, Joyce's love of clothes is showing no sign of abating.

She can no longer get to the shops as often as she would like so she has turned to catalogue shopping as an alternative.

"I think I will always love clothes. I'm not quite sure why I have kept hold of so many of my clothes - I can only think it was something to do with the war.

"Now at least when anyone wants to borrow an outfit for a special event they know where to come - and I like the idea that the clothes I have kept for years are still being worn," she said.