Joan Lawson was the aunt of Dennis Stringer and appeared at his funeral in January 2002.
An abrupt lady with words, she was extremely religious and disapproved of her nephew's way of conducting himself while alive. She had met Eileen Grimshaw before but was confused to find out that Dennis had left Eileen for Janice Battersby and not pleased when Janice's estranged husband, Les, also turned up at St. Mary's Church and interrupted proceedings.
She went back to the Chapman Street flat for the funeral tea afterwards when she made pious comments to Janice that her situation was a, "funny do. Still, it's not for me to pass judgement on what's been going on", invoking her belief that someone "greater" than her would be doing that. Joan was threatened with keeping quiet by Karen McDonald and ejected from the property by Rita Sullivan at the end of the day when she saw that Janice had had enough but that Joan showed no signs of leaving.