Barbara Moore

Barbara Moore, born Anna Cherkasova (; 22 December 1903 – 14 May 1977), was a Russian-born British engineer who attempted to gain celebrity status in the early 1960s for her long-distance walking and promotion of questionable health fads.

Biography

Moore was among the first generation of Soviet female engineers after the Russian Revolution. In 1932, she became the Soviet Union's long-distance motorcycle champion. She immigrated to Great Britain in 1939, marrying an art teacher, Harry Moore. They later separated.

In December 1959, she walked from Edinburgh to London. In early 1960, she walked from John o'Groats to Land's End in 23 days. She then undertook an 86-day, 3,387-mile walk from San Francisco to New York City, where she arrived on 6 July 1960.

She was a vegetarian and a breatharian, believing it is possible for people to survive without food. In November 1944 the then-new Vegan Society held its first meeting, at the Attic Club, 144 High Holborn, London. Those in attendance were Donald Watson, Elsie B. Shrigley, Fay K. Henderson, Alfred Hy Haffenden, Paul Spencer and Bernard Drake, with Moore observing.

Moore held that people could live to be 200 years old by abstaining from smoking, drinking alcohol and sex. She claimed she had cured herself of leukemia by way of a special diet.

Moore was portrayed by Zena Walker in a dramatisation of her later life in a 1980 episode of Play For Today entitled 'That crazy woman' after one of the newspaper headlines generated by her walks.