Memorial tribute unveiled in honour of Wigan war heroine

Mary O'Shaughnessy, who was born in Ashton-in-Makerfield in 1898, saved the lives of RAF aircrew in occupied France, survived Ravensbrück Concentration Camp and was an honorary member of RAF Escaping Society.

Now a commemorative bench has been installed at Ashton’s Jubilee Park with proud family in attendance.

Babs Hennessy, a retired goverment officer from Ashton, founded the The Mary O’Shaughnessy Society after she began researching Mary’s incredible life.

She became all the more intrigued after discovering the coincidence that Mary was living on Downall Green Road, the same street Babs now calls home.

Babs said: “About five years ago I read a book by Sarah Helm called If This Is a Woman, about the history of the Ravensbrück concentration camp and it talks about a woman called Mary O’Shaughnessy from Leigh. I became intrigued and began to find out more.

"Mary had a disability and wore a prosthetic hand. In 1920 she gave birth out of wedlock and had a boy called Thomas.

"He grew up to join the Royal Navy and become a war hero as well.

"There was a row in the family to do with Mary being an unmarried mother, so she left her baby with her parents in Wigan, moved to France and was there when the Nazis invaded.

"We don’t know a lot about the work she was doing out there but we know that she was in contact with the French Resistance and working for MI9; part of British Military Intelligence set up to help allied military personel trapped in France.

"Mary came under the radar of the Nazis and was on the Gestapo’s wanted list. She tried to flee France but was betrayed and given up in Leon where she was subjected to 10 days of torture and interrogation. She did not give them any information and was sent to Ravensbrük.

"She was rescued from the concentration camp in April 1945 by the Swedish Red Cross and is believed to be the only Englishwoman to have survived the death camp at Ravensbrük.

"In the early 1950s she moved to Kenya but in 1973 she came back to the UK to attend a reunion event in Brighton. At this event Mary fell ill and subsequently died on September 11.

"To this day she remains buried in Brighton in an unmarked grave, though her family are trying to do something about that.”

Dr Nicholas Jackson O’Shaughnessy, said: “I first came across the story of Mary from a book my brother found at school called The Scourge of the Swastika, by Lord Russell of Liverpool, and it had an entire page on Mary in the concentration camp.

"She survived a death camp, it is beyond horror to think of and you suddenly realise that you’ve spent all your life worrying about nothing.”

Babs added: "I wanted to have something for Mary in her hometown because what she did was extraordinary and heroic.

"We managed to get a memorial bench placed in Jubilee Park and held an unveiling ceremony. Now, I intend to find out more about Mary’s time in France during the war years.”