The family of a BBC tea lady who died this week has revealed she's the secret inspiration behind 'Children In Need' - after telling a Beeb boss to do a telethon for kids.

Joyce Rose, 79, lived in a children's residential home in Broadstairs after her dad left and her mother was sent to a workhouse.

While working at the Beeb, she marched up to a senior BBC executive on his lunch break in the 1970s and told him the corporation should do an annual TV fundraiser for children.

Unmarried 'Auntie' Joyce came up with the idea after being told she couldn't have kids herself - and always told her family about the encounter in the canteen.

She says he took the idea on board and in 1980 the first Children in Need telethon was broadcast and has since raised millions for good causes.

Joyce spent three decades serving beverages and biscuits in the corridors of Corporation House - and also raised thousands of pounds for the cause herself.

Miss Rose regaled her family with tales of her time at the BBC - including telling off Margaret Thatcher for skipping the queue to her trolley twice.

They were never sure whether Rose was pulling their leg - until her death on Monday when loved ones visited her home.

Her relatives were stunned to discover a newspaper cutting backing up her Maggie claim - and they now believe all her BBC stories were true.

Her nephew Wayne Bolley, 38, and her sister Linda, 73, have revealed Auntie Joyce's true influence ahead of the Children in Need telethon today (Friday).

She died on Monday from kidney cancer.

Linda said: "She would always tell us these stories but we sometimes didn't really believe her at the time.

"It was a pretty brave thing to do - to just go up to him and say what should and shouldn't be done at the BBC.

"The years of putting big stars back in their place must have given her the confidence to do it.

"She didn't come up with the name 'Children in Need' but the idea of a yearly thing on the TV was hers.

"But no one ever credited her for it.

“I suppose a tiny part of her must have been a bit resentful of that but she soon got stuck in and started doing all she could.

“Once it was on air and televised she thought Terry Wogan did a wonderful job.

“She told him once when they passed in the corridor. She thought he was a real genuine man."

Joyce, from Paddington, West London, worked at the BBC from the mid-60s to the mid 90s and was most often found outside the lifts selling snacks to the employees.

She became known for her equal treatment of all - regardless of celebrity status - and for putting 'big headed' people in their place

A few years later White Christmas singer Bing Crosby crossed paths with the infamous tea lady after he hit her with a door.

Linda said: "She was walking along the corridor with her trolley ready to serve tea and biscuits to the office workers.

"He was about 20 metres in front of her.

"He looked behind and saw her coming but chose not to keep the door open so it swung back and hit her in the face.

"Again he knew it happened but just kept walking. It was Bing Crosby's wife who gave him a right telling off.

"Joyce joined in too but she didn't go in as hard as his wife as she didn't think it was her place.

"Her dressing downs didn't happen all the time. She wasn't shouting her mouth off all the time but only where she thought it was needed.

"Her work for charity showed she had a caring heart but she hated people who thought they could step all over the little people."

Joyce's reputation was publicly recognised once, in a Daily Star newspaper cutting from December 1985 which her family found when clearing her house.

With the headline ‘Who’s afraid of Margaret Thatcher, not Joyce Rose’ it tells the story of the time she told then-PM to "twice get in the queue like everyone else".

Finding the cutting made the family recall all her old stories and want to tell them publicly for the first time.

“I was going through her stuff and found the newspaper and I thought ‘blimey, she did do it after all’," said Linda.

"She didn't care that she was the Prime Minister. She was always quick on bad manners so told her to go to the back as office staff only had 15 minutes for a break.

“Just because she had a high office didn't mean she didn't have to be polite.

“If you were out of line she would tell you. Apparently Maggie avoided the canteen floor for years so she didn't have to bump into Joyce."

Her family said Joyce dedicated her life to raising thousands of pounds for children's charities - including Children in Need.

“I was going through her stuff and found the newspaper and I thought ‘blimey, she did do it after all’..."Joyce's sister Linda

She would roam the streets of London dressed as the Queen raising thousands of pounds through donations she took in exchange for photos with tourists.

Wayne said: “After she retired she would spend every single day on the street with a charity bucket.

“Day in, day out she was out there with her bucket raising money for places like Great Ormond Street but Children in Need was still her number one.

“People used to love her. She would hit the streets of London dressed as the Queen.

“Neighbours would call her ‘the Queen of Notting Hill’.

“She was a big character of the area. We’re planning to bury her in her fundraising Queen outfit.

“Had she still been here she would be out on the streets now with her bucket collecting for Children in Need.”

Joyce was born in 1939 and grew up in Chelsea, South West London with her labourer dad and her mum who worked as a restaurant cleaner.

She had two older sisters Doreen and Gwendaline along with two younger sisters Dorothy and Linda.

When Joyce was seven-years-old her dad walked out on her mum, who was carted off to a workhouse.

Joyce was split up from her sisters and sent to a children's residential home in Broadstairs, Kent.

Before joining the BBC Joyce previously worked in a handbag factory in Paddington.

She applied for a job at Broadcasting House after spotting an advertisement in a newspaper.

Linda added: "Joyce would always look out for me as I was seven years her junior.

"When we got a bit older she would take me to the cinema as she was fascinated by the movie stars.

''I think that's why she was keen to get into the BBC.

"At times she acted like a mother as she knew I never had that figure in my life. Our dad left before I was born.

"I think our upbringing definitely played a part in her coming up with the idea of Children in Need - as that's what we were.

''Five young girls without any parents.

"There just wasn't the support for single mums back then so we had no choice but to be sent away.

"But I think that always stuck with her.

"She had a fitting name because she was always joyful. But in an argument she knew how to hold her own. For someone who had a tough life she was very fair."