In May, dozens of people came to the historic Kersal Moor, just off Bury New Road, to remember and rejoice the life of Alice Searle, who, not only was integral to Salford’s heritage and community but also way beyond, stretching to AIDS victims in South Africa and to pupils in the Pacific islands.
In Salford, Alice was the force behind the creation of a monument to the Chartists who met on the Moor and ushered in the birth of democracy in the UK, and to a monument for the miners at Agecroft Colliery on Agecroft Road in Pendlebury. Alice was also the catalyst to all the amazing community events on Kersal Moor, the interactive Naturalist map of the Moor as part of the Bury New Road project and two sell-out books on the history of the Moor.
Speakers, including her children and grandchildren, paid tribute to the tireless campaigner, stressing the gentle humanism behind her activism, and a moving message was read out from one South African man whose life was literally positively changed by the actions of one woman from Salford.
Alice’s ashes were buried on the Moor by her grandchildren to the sound of a lone trumpet playing the Red Flag, and a quote from Alice herself was read out from the recently published book Alice In Salford Isolationland, her lockdown diary from the days of COVID. It was how she lived her life and a great guide for others…
“Had this dangerous virus coincidently reintroduced something we all need?” she wrote “A cleaner, quieter, kinder world; one in which we value family and friends, one in which things are less important than health, peace and friendship; a very different world…”
Below is a film of the day, made by her son, Richard Searle, and a very fitting tribute…
Alice was a force of nature.A determined woman who got things done.A very interesting person with plenty of stories to tell. She’d always say Hello and have a chat if we bumped into her when taking our dogs onto the moor
Sorry we couldn’t attend her farewell.
Mary and Dave