Joan Ochuodho was born in 1979 in Kenya, the 11th child in a happy family of 12 siblings. Her father was a civil engineer, and her mother was mostly a stay-at-home mum, who also ran small businesses. There was no family military connection, but Joan had always admired the Kenyan Air Force at a distance and thought one day she might join. “I always thought, you know, maybe.”
Education was considered the key to progress in her family and was always a priority. Joan was a good student, and a school prefect. When she was just 19, she came to the UK to combine a degree in Economics and Environmental Sciences with a work placement at an accountancy firm, but without “any sense of where I was going with it… I think in my mind I just wanted to be successful at whatever I chose to do.”
It was a giant billboard at Sudbury Hill Train station in Harrow that changed everything.
“I remember very, very vividly…we saw a billboard with a Royal Navy person, of Commonwealth origin. There was a picture with a title, saying ‘Join the Navy’.
The friend she was with suggested they join. I said: “No! because I couldn’t swim at the time. So why would I want to join the Navy?! But he called the careers office and gave them his details and mine.” A short time later Joan received careers information flyers from all 3 forces in the post. Her friend, meanwhile, decided to pursue a different career.
“So, I looked at the Air Force and I thought this could be something. And for me, there was almost a penny drop moment of, the world could be your oyster, Joan!”
Joan was 22 years old when she joined RAF Halton, Buckinghamshire. There were two other people of colour in her cohort, one of them another woman, and Joan was one of the older recruits. She quickly acquired a team mindset thanks to the training, observing that the younger ones needed a little bit of looking after. “The mindset I took was ‘We’ve got to do this together. We’ve got to be successful at this’”.
Joan worked hard from the outset and earned 3 trophies during training. Her potential was recognized by her superior officers who encouraged her to think about commissioning. “That was a big deal!”
At the time, there were few women in the senior ranks, but Joan was inspired by Lilian Bader, one of the first Black women to serve in the forces, and encouraged by “a lot of inspiring people around me who saw something in me that maybe I didn’t see at the time, and then just nudged a little bit to say, “Joan, do you want to consider doing this?”
Joan’s military career has given her a wide range of opportunities. As well as achieving the rank of Wing Commander, she received a Chief of the Air Staff Fellowship to study International Relations at King’s College.
Joan was a keen football player from an early age, playing with her cousins. “…a lot of them were male and used to play football a lot. So I kind of jumped in and I played football (too). I was a very skinny child and… those were the years when girls’ football really kind of started growing in Kenya… I’d watch international football.“
Joan played football for her school and on joining the Air Force, played for RAF Uxbridge and one occasion, for the Royal Air Force’s women’s team at White Hart Lane. “We were thrashed, but that’s a story for another time!”
When the chance came for Joan to be involved in football administration, “it was a no-brainer. If there’s any sport I wanted to be part of, it was football.” In June 2023, Joan was appointed as the RAF’s FA representative to the FA Council, sitting on the People and Culture Committee and the Appointments Sub-Committee.
“To be part of the council, to work very closely with the first female head of the FA Debbie Hewitt, has been a real privilege…I walk into council meetings, pinching myself a lot of times…just walking in to Wembley from the tube stations, I get goosebumps, for me it’s the togetherness it brings…it has such an opportunity to bring communities together.”
Joan’s biggest challenges have come in the real world, balancing a career and family. “I deployed to Nigeria in, 2020… being away from my children for six months, just the thought of it was difficult. I remember as I was going to the airport, I was so conflicted. But what really helped me was the fact that you can video call nowadays.
“I think being a mum has made me be very deliberate about my career. Within the military, you have the opportunity to look ahead and go to your career manager. It doesn’t always mean you’ll get what you want, but a lot of times if you engage early… then the system will normally try its very best. Sometimes you’re needing to deploy, sometimes you’re needing to work long hours, sometimes you’re needing to work weekends. It is demanding on the family.
“Over the years, we’ve done really well as a military to bring in policies that help retain and help support families. I think those policies have influenced, in my view, the ability for women to stay on and pursue higher ranks.”
Joan views Remembrance as “…a time to reflect. Some of those we’ve lost, whether it’s in conflict… or whatever else, they have been part of this service. They gave their lives to the service and so it is a time to reflect on their contribution, on the value they added, on the sense of gratitude for some of us to have that we are still here.
For me it’s not just about the distant or the semi distant history, it’s about the now. The reason people who have been part of my existence in this military that are now not with us.”