regarding facilities for disabled drivers. Final years and death In 1968 Bessie became vice chairman (and therefore chairman-elect) of the Labour Party. However, in February 1969 she collapsed with exhaustion and was hospitalised. In August she resigned from the NEC on health grounds, thus forgoing her succession to the party chairmanship. In September she announced that she did not intend to contest the next general election, and would retire from politics, a decision which shocked and disappointed her constituents. In April 1970 she was awarded the freedom of the City of Liverpool, the first woman thus honoured. Bessie formally left parliament at the dissolution before the June 1970 general election; on 13 November 1970 she died in Liverpool's Rathbone Hospital, at the age of 71. At her funeral service held a few days later at Anfield Crematorium, in the course of his tribute, Harold Wilson summed her up thus: "She was born to fight for the people of the docks, of the slums, of the factories and in every part of the city where people needed help". The service was non-sectarian in accordance with her atheism. Appraisal At the time of her death, commentators described Bessie as one of the most notable political personalities of her time, and perhaps the best-known woman in Britain after Queen Elizabeth II. She was especially appreciated in Liverpool, where much of her campaigning zeal for better housing and healthcare was concentrated. Widely known and remembered as "Battling Bessie", thirty years after her death she was placed eighth in a BBC poll of "great Merseysiders". Bessie was renowned for the sharpness of her tongue, either in pursuit of her campaigns or in denouncing her enemies. She frequently used inflammatory, colourful language, once describing an opposing councillor as a "blasted rat", and another time telling the Tory majority that she was willing "to take a machine gun to the lot of you". In contrast to this aggressive public, Bessie's private life was unostentatious. She did not smoke or drink, dressed conventionally and holidayed modestly in Scarborough. Nevertheless, she enjoyed the company of many glamorous friends from the worlds of show business and boxing. Towards perceived adversaries, Bessie showed neither patience nor respect, especially those with whom she had once shared common ground on the far left. Apart from her attacks on Bevan, she displayed particular scorn for the future Labour Party leader Michael Foot, whose practice