An Ode to Agie

I remember meeting Agnes [Agie] Bailey in the late 1960's when she came into our garage looking to borrow, of all things, a crow-bar!

This was an old lady, looking older than her years, because of the hard life she had lead, dressed in old cloths, tramp like, with a beret on her head cocked to the side and a cigarette hanging from the side of her mouth as she spoke in a roughYorkshire accent.

Who would have known that she had been an accomplished pianist and violinist in her younger days, giving concerts and lessons to children.

She had for many years run the family business as a Monumental Mason from a yard next to the Utley Cemetery in Keighley.

She was well known locally, and took up running the business single-handed, after other family members passed away, and being a skillful Sculptress, who as well as being able to cut the words into a gravestone was able to carve Angels and other figures required.

Agie also liked a drink and the bar staff at the local pub, The Roebuck, tell the stories of her comming in and ordering four pints at last orders, and then drinking them all before chucking out time!....and then getting in her van and driving the short distance home!

She was also well known for going through the local newspaper's obituaries and then going knocking on the bereaved families door to try and sell them a gravestone!

Stories of her on particular day walking around Keighley, dressed in a really smart red trouser suit, pill box hat and matching scarf and handbag, and telling observers, who did not recognise her, that she was off to t' “Paris Fashions” and would be staying with the daughter of a local industrialist whilst there.

She died in November 1981, age 70 yrs and when the piece of land that had been the site of her masonry business was developed into a small housing estate, it was named “Bailey Close”, a reminder of this local character.

Here are my respectful thought about her.

January 2023

 

Utley Cemetery.....possibly some of Agies handy work?

Who's the dishevelled figure shuffling along

Making her regular journey daily

A sad and lonely woman passing by

This solitary person, Agnes Bailey

This well known lady,long departed

Gone nearly fifty or more

Yet her legend still lives on locally

As we still talk about her fondly

Weary old cloths and side cocked beret

And the cig from the side of her mouth

We would guess the secrets of her life

As she wanders past on her way out

Those hands, gnarled and worn

Like hands of a working man

From years of chiselling gravestones

As she climbs back in her van

Who'd have realise that she had a talent

An accomplished violinist when younger

Giving concerts and teaching children

A practice not used any longer

Long live Agie in our History

As her ghost wanders Utley Cemetery

That long lost wandering soul

Still remembered in our memory