A woman who helped lead the Allies to victory in WWII by sending secret codes to the British Army from a small tin hut on the moors has died at the age of 101.
Agnes Kelly was 20-years-old and working as a shop assistant in Edge Hill when she was called to join the Auxiliary Territorial Service in March 1942. After three weeks of basic training and aptitude tests at the Peninsula Barracks in Warrington, she was selected for the Royal Corps of Signals, and spent the next three years as a teleprinter operator, touch-typing and sending top secret coded messages to British forces overseas.
She died on Friday, August 26, surrounded by her family at the Connell Court Residential Care Home in Southport.
READ MORE: Nazi cigarettes, condoms and rare Hitler memo found in sunken Mersey U-boat
Her son James Kelly, 69, said: "She had a life well-lived, full of happiness - a very caring life. If someone was short of something, she helped them out. Our doors were always open; we didn't lock our front doors in those days.
"There were 80 households on our street and we knew every single one of them. It was a wonderful life."
Agnes, a great-grandmother-of-five, was born in Edge Hill on May 27, 1921, and later lived in Ainsdale.
After joining the ATS during the war and being selected as a teleprinter operator, she attended an army signals training school in Queensbury, near Bradford, where she learned Morse code, touch typing, and the procedures for sending and receiving messages using teleprinters.
James said: "They also had to learn the theories of electricity and magnetism, because if the teleprinters broke down, the girls had to fix them themselves. They were sending messages all over the world, and they couldn't risk a single mistake.
"If they sent a single letter wrong, they could be court-marshalled. My mum told me she could type 120 words a minute in code."
Agnes continued her training in various posts in Bournemouth, Southbourne and Chester - and spent her 21st birthday in a small metal Nissen hut up on the moors, where she celebrated by sharing a bottle of cider with 10 other female teleprinter operators.
After becoming a fully fledged member of the 3rd Coy 4 Command ATS Signals, she was posted to Birkenhead, before returning to Liverpool to work from the The Bluecoat School in Childwall and the Cotton Exchange in Old Hall Street.
In 1942 she met her future husband Edward Kelly, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, at a tea dance at Saint Dunstan's Parish Church on Earle Road, Edge Hill. Formerly a monk serving at a French monastery, Edward gave up his religious profession to marry Agnes, and the couple had four children: Margaret, Paul, James, and Jeremy.
They were married for 67 years, until Edward's death in 2012. After the war, Agnes returned to work in retail, and later worked as a dinner lady at Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School.
James said: "We have been completely and utterly blessed to have had her for so long. She was completely compos mentis until the end. She had a tremendous memory. Whenever there was a quiz at the care home, people would say 'not you again Agnes, you know too much.'
"She was the type of person who would talk to anyone, on a bus or a train. She was very sociable, and a very easy person to get on with. She had a great smile, and a great sense of humour."
Agnes' funeral will take place at noon on Tuesday, September 13, at the Sacred Heart Church on Liverpool Road, Ainsdale.
READ MORE:
MSE Martin Lewis shares cheapest way to pay your energy bill
Woman, 43, killed by 'blunt force trauma' as murder probe launched
Fairytale cottage overlooking historic park revamped into family home
Dad says McDonald's pigeon spike was 'inches away' from hitting baby son
Drug courier transported £30,000 of cocaine to pay off debt after losing his job
