Joseph managed to build up an impressive list of authors, including H. E. Bates, C. S. Forester, Monica Dickens and Richard Llewellyn.
[3] He was a member of the Army Officers' Emergency Reserve, and in the summer of 1940 was called up and posted to a battalion of the Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment as Company commander, responsible for guarding the coast.
In the spring of 1941, he retired from the army on medical grounds, and purchased Copyhold Farm near Newbury, Berkshire, where he moved with his family.
The couple divorced in 1926, and Joseph promptly married Edna Victoria Nellie Frost, with whom he had a daughter, Shirley, and son, Richard.
Edna died in 1949, and Joseph's third marriage the next year was to Anthea Esther Hodson, with whom he had a daughter, Charlotte, and son, Hugh.