No one gave you a medal, but you will always be a hero to me

Illustration by Rebecca Cobb

To coincide with this year's Children's Book Week theme of Heroes and Heroines, Booktrust's Director of Programmes, Rosemary Clarke, tells us about a very personal heroine

Agnes Moore and my Nan were born Liverpool in 1902, in tall thin houses, in the streets than ran down to the docks. They grew up together, found husbands and moved to the green and pleasant suburbs of Huyton in 1936 where they were next-door neighbours for the rest of their lives.

The funny thing about their friendship was that they never used first names - it was always Mrs Moore and Mrs Mc. Nan said, ‘It’s just respect, it’s been like that since we became married women. Oh, and by the way, if you run a message for Mrs Moore don’t take any money for it, just do it because you want to.’
We had a ritual; I would hand over the loaf and change.  Aggie would offer me a penny; I’d put my hands behind my back and say ‘No thank you’. She would offer it again, and on the third time of asking the penny would change hands.

 When you are small, old people seem ancient – you cannot imagine them young. Once my Nan told me how they used to walk out together aged about 14. They used to buy farthing wraps of face power, a delicate pink to take the shine off rosy cheeks.

Once, Aggie, finding herself short of money had used Birds Custard Powder instead, and it had rained! My Nan was hysterical laughing at the memory, and for the first time, I saw them both as they must have been.

Aggie lost her husband in the war and never remarried. When my grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, Aggie came around with a present and to reminisce.                   

I sat quietly, eavesdropping and afterwards, my Nan told me Aggies’s story.

Aggies’s husband had been seriously injured in the war, and was shipped back home to an army hospital, but it suffered a direct hit by the German Luftwaffe and he was killed. 

Aggie, had been working in a munitions factory, but the twenty mile round trip for hospital visits meant she’d had to leave. Now, with no husband, no job, three small children and no close family, Aggie had to take any job she could get. 

 It was probably one of the worst jobs in the world.

For decades, the railway at Liverpool Docks had brought all sorts of goods to the dockside for import and export all around the world. The war meant Liverpool now had an even more important role; it was the port for the Atlantic convoys, these were the ships that were bringing in essential supplies and keeping the country fed. Keeping the railway functioning was absolutely crucial.

Every night, the biting winds and the damp from the Mersey made ice on the metal railway tracks and in the early hours, Aggie would work on her hands and knees clearing it with an ice pick and scraper. Aggie started work at 4am, so, my Nan would mind Aggies’s children, with her own. It was freezing cold, back breaking work, but she did it.

One night a passing watchman shouted, ‘Alright mate? Cold enough for you?' Aggie answered and the bloke stopped in his tracks; Aggie was wearing two of Bill’s overcoats, his scarf, gloves, a hat, and Bill’s old trousers and boots. The watchman had assumed she was a man.

‘Blimey missus’, what are you doing down here?' He took her into his watchman’s shed, gave her a cup of tea, and she told him her story. He was in the union and said that as Bill had been a docker, he was sure there would be some way he could help her; and he did.

Nan said, ‘soldiers pay the price of war, but those that stay home pay too; what Mrs Moore did for her family was so brave.’

I couldn’t believe it; such nobility and courage.  I saw Aggie in a new light- a girl, playing with my Nan, a young lady, with custard power cheeks, a bride, a mother, a munitions worker, a war widow, an ice scraper on the docks railway. Aggie Moore - our self effacing neighbour and friend.

Aggie, no one gave you a medal, but you will always be a hero to me.