Let them eat cake

Today a Stockport Heritage blue plaque was unveiled in honour of Gertrude Powicke, a remarkable woman who died of typhus 100 years ago while working with war refugees in Poland. Gertrude was a real trail blazer, an early graduate of Manchester University, an active and determined Suffragist and a courageous aid worker during and after World War One in France and Poland. To help those in need she put herself in danger, from enemy guns, then incurable disease. She was intelligent, practical, compassionate and entertaining, I would have loved to have known her.

One of our local councillors, a local historian, has campaigned long and hard for this. I grew up just up the road from here and knew of Powicke House but knew nothing of the remarkable young woman who once lived there.

The photos show the plaque being unveiled, a group of Gertrude’s family descendants and Gertrude’s favourite food, cake, being served.