Welcome to Elisa's personal pages Molly Lefebure 'Murder on the Home Front' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/saturday_play.shtml This is how I first stumbled across the work of Molly Lefebure. BBC Radio 4 commission some excellent and unusual dramas, and this was a series of 4 hour-long dramatisations of real stories taken from her book 'Evidence For the Crown. Experiences of a Pathologist's secretary.' She was formerly private secretary to Sir Keith Simpson, the Home Office pathologist - and she describes some of the cases that they had to deal with. Through them you get a vivid picture of life (and crime) in wartime London and southern England. There are some fascinating forensic 'firsts' such as the first exclusive use of dental records to establish identity, but more interesting to me as a woman is the sheer scale of the violence against women! Whether it was the 'epidemic' (not my word) of wife murders committed by returning soldiers, or the murders committed by soldiers billeted and encamped locally, or incidents of men who thought they could literally 'get away with murder' under the exceptional circumstances of wartime. It is a raw and frightening picture of male violence against women. All our accepted understanding of the war years is about the bravery of all on 'the home front' and the overwhelming risks run by our (men) soldiers in combat. But the reality is somewhat different. Statistics reveal that more people died from traffic accidents occasioned by the blackout than died directly from enemy bombs - and Molly Lefebure's revealing book suggests that the reality of the dangers for women were maybe not at all as we had assumed them to be! Getting hold of her book is no easy matter now - as it is out of print. In December 2003 I managed to track a copy, and ordered it from Canada http://www.doreenstephensbooks.com Apart from that the only other copy I could trace was in Adelaide Australia Lefebure, Molly .Evidence For the Crown. Reprint .William Heinemann .London . 1955 . Hardbound .235 pages Contains b/w photographs. .Experiences of a Pathologist's secretary. The ''stranger-than-fiction'' experiences of ""Miss Molly,'' secretary to the famous British pathologist, Dr. Keith Simpson, who offices were the morgues & courts of London, England. "The intrepid reader will meet an assortment of vicious murderers & their victims & yet have the feeling that he has been to a spirited tea party. An episode from the Radio drama series Murder on the Home Front, Part 4  (Saturday 13 December 2003) By Molly Lefebure, adapted by Michael Crompton Autumn, 1942. Forensic experts Hardcastle and Molly find themselves involved in a series of apparently related killings. The speed and viciousness of the attacks is even more alarming when it is realised that a pattern is emerging, all the victims are women in uniform. With Kevin Whately, Emily Bruni, Mary Macleod, Jonathan Hackett, Tonia Chauvet, Adrian Scarborough, Ioan Meredith, and Paul Ritter. Director John Dove. Emily Bruni, who plays Molly in the radio dramas   Other books I've found by Molly Lefebure: BLITZ! The lives of four families-from the upper crust to the working poor-become intertwined during the London blitz of 1940. Some strong language. 1988. 728 pgs. 3 vols. Murder with a Difference: The Cases of Haigh and Christie. London: Heinemann, 1958.  Examination of two of the most notorious multiple murders in English legal history. Samuel Taylor Coleridge: A Bondage of Opium. London: Quartet Books, 1977.  B/W photos and illustrations. 537 pages w/ index, bibliography, and appendices She seems to have written on a wide range of subjects from the English Lake District to Thomas Hardy and the Romantic Poets. I'm hoping to get hold of 'Murder with a Difference' and see what her work is like. Apart from that I'm finding it difficult to discover anything much about her and her life after the war and her years with the forensic pathology lab.

© Mike and Elisabeth Liddell 2006-11

Website created and maintained by ScotiaWebs 2006-11