Charity Anne Bick (19 December 1925 â 22 April 2002) was an English civilian dispatch rider during the Second World War, and the youngest ever recipient of the George Medal, the United Kingdom's second-highest award for civilian bravery. She later served in the Women's Royal Air Force.
Charity Anne Bick was born on 19 December 1925 and educated at Lyng Primary School in Horton Street, Lyng, West Bromwich.
At the age of 14, while living in Maud Road, West Bromwich she lied about her age, claiming to be 16, to join the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) service in that town. She volunteered at the office of a brick works near her home, delivering messages between ARP depots, by bicycle. Her father was an ARP post warden, and her mother a Red Cross nurse.
During a air raid on West Bromwich, on 19 November 1940, she helped her father to put out an incendiary bomb that had lodged in the roof of a pawnbroker's shop. When the roof gave way, she fell through and suffered minor injuries. Nonetheless, she then used a borrowed bicycle and made numerous attempts to deliver a message to the control room, one and a quarter miles away, avoiding bombs and shrapnel. She made repeated trips, at least three of which occurred during the height of the raid.
Bick was awarded the George Medal (GM) for her bravery; the official citation, in The London Gazette of 14 February 1941, read:
Aged 15, she was the youngest person ever to receive the GM, for her actions when she was 14. The medal was presented to her by King George VI in a ceremony on 10 September 1941. She also received the Defence Medal and War Medal at the end of the war.
Bick was subsequently known as "Jimmie", from the honorific "GM".
She was posted to Kinross, Scotland, in 1944 as an electrician in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, retiring in 1962 from its successor, the Women's Royal Air Force as a warrant officer, and having earned the Royal Air Force Long Service and Good Conduct Medal. In the meantime, she had set up a home at Forres. She subsequently worked as a civil servant in the Department of Health and Social Security in Elgin, from which she retired in 1987.
She recalled in 1988 how she used her George Medal to play the washboard when she was in a skiffle group.
Late in her life, Bick lived in Inverness. She died there on 22 April 2002, age 76.
Bick's portrait, in oil, by Alfred Reginald Thomson, RA, an official war artist, is in the Imperial War Museum, London, while her medals are on display at the Imperial War Museum North. A blue plaque commemorating Bick was erected at Lyng Primary School, by the Lyng History Group, on 21 February 2002. The school was presented with a replica set of her medals in March 2002. Charity Bick Way in West Bromwich is named in her honour.