Bolton: Family pay tribute to internet sensation

Alice Shields took the world by storm in the early months of the pandemic two years ago with her online cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, which was watched over 100,000 times.

She performed the song in response to the "chase the rainbow" campaign which helped keep children entertained during their once daily walks around their neighbourhoods, during the first lockdown in 2020.

Alice’s daughter Maxine also trained as a singer, which she said was very much inspired by her mum.

Maxine with mum and Carl having a laugh

She added: “She loved Rodgers and Hammerstein and loved to sing.

“I knew all the songs growing up.

“She definitely inspired me.

“She was always singing and smiling

“My mum was the kindest, gentlest person you could meet.

“She was very sociable and took to everything in life and gave it her best.

“She had a very good life and would often travel to Blackpool, and Europe.

“She always went to Blackpool because that’s where her honeymoon was.”

Her daughter-in-law Susan Shields said that Alice always “loved to sing and would sing everywhere she went”.

Susan with her mother-in-law Alice

Susan said: “She loved singing and always sang wherever she went.

“She loved bursting out into song.

“To me, she was a mother as well.”

Alice’s favourite songs were Over the Rainbow, It's now or never by Elvis Presley, and Vera Lynn's The White Cliffs of Dover.

Susan has been married to Alice’s son Carl for 37 years, and she says that Alice "never had a cross word to say about anybody".

Alice had four children, with Carl and Maxine especially there for her over the years.

She had seven grandchildren, and six great grandchildren, who ‘thought the world of her’.

Maxine said: “She loved all her grandchildren very much.

Susan added: “The grandchildren think the world of her, and this absolutely broke their hearts.

“You accept it a little when you get older even though it is hard.

“But for grandchildren, their whole world has been taken away from them.”

Family pay tribute to ‘most wonderful, caring and gentle' mum who died at 98

She was married for almost 60 years to Gordon, who sadly died from dementia around 15 years ago.

They both met each other whilst they were out dancing at the former Bolton nightclub, Palais.

Maxine added: “He loved her in his own daft way.

“My mum must have been a saint because he was hard work at times.

“But they had 59 happy years.”

Alice’s family describe her as ‘the best mum in the world’ and that there is ‘nothing they wouldn’t do for her’.

She had three brothers, Raymond, Thomas, and Donald, and was the eldest.

Alice with one of her brothers

During the war, she helped put the rivets in the wings on the Lancaster Bomber.

Susan added: “She would tell everyone when we took her out for a meal.”

Maxine said: “Even though it was during the war, they were the happies memories of her life because she had a ball.

“She was really proud of that.

“She worked long hours, but she was always off dancing.

“She would go every night if she could.”

One of her favourite pasttimes was bingo, where she played at Tonge and Breightmet Conservative Club.

Maxine says she was always very lucky at bingo and always won.

Family pay tribute to ‘most wonderful, caring and gentle' mum who died at 98

After being diagnosed with dementia, Alice spent the last four years of her life at Lever Edge Care Home in Great Lever, which had gotten ‘quite bad’ towards the end.

Carl and Maxine still continued to take their mum on trips away and days out.

Maxine added: “She had a very long life and carried on despite her illness.”

Before she died of natural causes, she had an ambition to get to 100 so she could get a telegram from the Queen.

Her funeral will be held on Friday, April 29 at Overdale Crematorium at 3pm.