A daughter has remembered her tenacious and straight-talking mother, a feminist before her time who rolled up her sleeves and dealt with every challenge life threw her way.
Many in Claydon and Ipswich will remember Muriel Moore; for many years, she served on Claydon Parish Council, having made the village her home after moving to our part of the world with her husband, Barry Moore – or ‘Mr Buses’, as he was better known, being the CEO of Ipswich Buses.
Muriel threw herself into community life here in Suffolk, although she was a midlander by birth.
Muriel was born in Leicester on November 10, 1931, to Constance and Frank Ollerenshaw - her father always remained very proud of the family’s strong, Yorkshire surname.
Muriel was the sixth of seven children. The young family was marked by tragedy; two of Muriel’s elder brothers did not survive childhood, with one being stillborn and another dying of meningitis.
As a teenager, Muriel met Brian Skelding at a dance held at the De Montfort Hall. The pair were smitten, and married when Muriel was just 18.
Two daughters soon arrived; first Karey and then Jennifer.
However, tragedy struck the young family when Brian died from cancer in November, 1955. Muriel became a widow at 24, with her two girls aged five and 18 months old.
“She did have a very hard life,” said Karey. As soon as she could find a nursery placement for Jennifer, Muriel found work as a secretary in an office.
Being a single mother was not easy, but Karey cherishes memories of laughing together with her mother and sister. She particularly remembers her mother’s exasperation at the speed at which the sisters finished the apples and bananas in the family fruit bowl.
“She said, 'Really girls! You’d think they grew on trees!'” Karey remembered. “We just looked at her for a minute, confused, and then she burst out laughing!”
When Karey turned 15, some family members suggested that she ought to leave school and start contributing to the household.
However, Muriel was firm; Karey had passed the 11-plus, and she was determined that neither of her daughters should miss out on opportunities.
When Karey attended university to study English Literature, Muriel would proudly tell her friends, “My Karey knows everything about Shakespeare.” “I’d only read a few plays!” laughed Karey.
Muriel was equally proud of Jennifer, who studied horticulture at college in Cannington, and later moved to Somerset. Jennifer sadly died in 2009.
Muriel herself moved to work at Leicester City Transport, which was how she came to meet her second husband, Barry.
The couple tied the knot in February of 1973.
Muriel and Barry lived in Plymouth for a time, when Barry became deputy manager at Plymouth Transport.
In 1979, Barry was appointed Ipswich’s ‘Mr Buses’, which was when he and Muriel made the move up to Suffolk. They spent five years in Ipswich before moving to Claydon to a house with a larger garden, for Muriel loved plants, where they lived ever since.
As ‘Mrs Buses’, Muriel was always very supportive to Barry in his work, said Karey, and enjoyed attending functions with him,
She worked at the Great White Horse Hotel in Ipswich, on the corner of Tavern Street, until retiring in the mid-1990s.
From then, Muriel threw herself into village life in Claydon, where she served as a parish councillor for a number of years. She is particularly remembered for her hard work in organising the village’s celebration for the Millennium.
Barry and Muriel loved to travel and spent their later years having adventure. Together, they travelled central Europe, South America, the Caribbean and Iceland, to name just a few places.
In retirement, Muriel enjoyed having time to devote to gardening, reading, and of course being with her daughters’ children. Muriel loved being a grandmother to her six grandchildren, and was delighted to become a great-grandmother.
Her daughters and grandchildren were proud to follow in her footsteps, and of her legacy of hard work and refusing to give up.
“I really admired her. She was a real role model for me,” said Karey. “She was a feminist before her time.”
Muriel died on July 18, aged 92. Barry died in May of 2022, aged 81.
To read more tributes to those we have loved and lost in Ipswich, click here
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