Molly Lefebure (1919–2013)
Author of Murder on the Home Front
About the Author
Image credit: Molly Lefebure
Works by Molly Lefebure
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Lefebure, Molly
- Birthdate
- 1919-10-06
- Date of death
- 2013-02-27
- Gender
- female
- Education
- King's College London
North London Collegiate School - Occupations
- biographer
novelist
memoirist
literary scholar
secretary
journalist (show all 7)
children's book author - Awards and honors
- Royal Society of Literature (2010)
- Relationships
- Simpson, Keith (boss)
- Short biography
- Molly Lefebure, born in the London borough of Hackney, was descended from several prominent French men of letters. As a child, she spent summers on a farm in Exmoor, where she learned to hunt; she later wrote about hunting for The Field and Country Life. She worked as a newspaper reporter after studying journalism at King's College, London. During World War II, she served as secretary to Dr. Keith Simpson, head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at Guy's Hospital and Home Office pathologist. She wrote about the experience in Evidence for the Crown (1954), aka Murder on the Home Front. In 1945, she married John Gerrish, with whom she had two sons. She became a group therapist and youth club counselor, and the author of some 20 other books, including novels, biographies of the Lake Poets and their circle, books about the Lake District, and other nonfiction. She also wrote numerous radio and television plays, short stories, and articles for magazines and journals. She helped establish and run the famous annual Wordsworth Summer Conference at Grasmere in the Lake District.
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Hackney, London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- London, England, UK
Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England, UK
Cumbria, England, UK - Associated Place (for map)
- England, UK
Members
Reviews
Murder on the Home Front: A True Story of Morgues, Murderers, and Mysteries during the London Blitz by Molly Lefebure
Fascinating, in that it opens the door to life in the London blitz and to life as a coroner's assistant. It's a good read, and I found her tone appropriate, mostly. She's kind of callous about the dead, which makes sense under the circumstances, but some of these murders are heartwrenchingly horrible and it's hard to flip my mindset to most interesting body on the slab today -- like I said, appropriate, but for me, troubling. Also I was annoyed that murdered 14 year old girls are tragic when show more they are good children and the bad end that they should have expected when the girl was sexually active. Murdered 14 year old girls are always tragic in my book, but there is a distinct judgement offered in this one. Sad. show less
Murder on the Home Front: A True Story of Morgues, Murderers, and Mysteries During the London Blitz by Molly Lefebure
Stuck for something to watch on Netflix, I found Murder on the Home Front, which looked like every other period detective drama, heavy on the wartime aesthetics. And then I discovered that the plucky young reporter called up to be the morgue-based secretary of pathologist Dr Keith Simpson was actually a real woman, Molly Lefebure, and that the 2013 two-parter was based on her professional memoirs! Sold.
The adaptation paints Molly, played by Tamzin Merchant, as an intrepid young working woman show more trying to break into crime reporting, whereas the real Miss Lefebure was rather more middle class, darling, and met Dr Simpson in a cemetery of all places. She did work for him for five years during the war, however, and observed over 7,000 post mortems. She was also a published author and a Coleridge scholar.
I enjoyed Molly's recounting of her time with 'C.K.S.', as she calls the pathologist, and her snapshot of life in London during the war:
"The innumerable cups of tea that were made, the narrow-squeak stories that were swapped, the Union Jacks that appeared – as in the old Blitz – stuck on the piles of wreckage."
She is very firmly of her era and class, however. Murdered women are judged for their morals - including a rather sad preponderance of pubescent girls killed by predatory men, who then escape justice because the girls 'encouraged' such unsavoury attention (no statutory rape here, then). Molly judges her fellow women incredibly harshly, in particular those living in poverty: 'Personally I feel that a clean prostitute is better than a stinking, dirty housewife who lets her children live like cockroaches.' Youths from poor working class backgrounds don't escape her condemnation either:
Less than uneducated, reared solely on a culture of picture papers, blaring radio, films, cigarettes, back streets, pin-table saloons and easy money, eternally bored, fed to the back teeth with everything and everybody, including themselves, bad-tempered, impatient, and carrying great, Great Big Chips on Their Shoulders, they were brought, like two sulky, bickering children, into court.
Social commentary aside, her narration has a witty, lively tone, reminding me of Wodehouse, which fits the wartime era perfectly, and her accounts of the Blitz and outdated but still topical modes of punishment like hanging are also very interesting: 'Nobody need have any doubt of the swift efficiency with which hanging is practised in our prisons today. It is as quick, humane and efficient a method of execution as any in the world.'
Occasional but unavoidable xenophobia, sexism and snobbery aside, Molly's memoirs are a truly fascinating real-life collection of criminal and medical anecdotes. show less
The adaptation paints Molly, played by Tamzin Merchant, as an intrepid young working woman show more trying to break into crime reporting, whereas the real Miss Lefebure was rather more middle class, darling, and met Dr Simpson in a cemetery of all places. She did work for him for five years during the war, however, and observed over 7,000 post mortems. She was also a published author and a Coleridge scholar.
I enjoyed Molly's recounting of her time with 'C.K.S.', as she calls the pathologist, and her snapshot of life in London during the war:
"The innumerable cups of tea that were made, the narrow-squeak stories that were swapped, the Union Jacks that appeared – as in the old Blitz – stuck on the piles of wreckage."
She is very firmly of her era and class, however. Murdered women are judged for their morals - including a rather sad preponderance of pubescent girls killed by predatory men, who then escape justice because the girls 'encouraged' such unsavoury attention (no statutory rape here, then). Molly judges her fellow women incredibly harshly, in particular those living in poverty: 'Personally I feel that a clean prostitute is better than a stinking, dirty housewife who lets her children live like cockroaches.' Youths from poor working class backgrounds don't escape her condemnation either:
Less than uneducated, reared solely on a culture of picture papers, blaring radio, films, cigarettes, back streets, pin-table saloons and easy money, eternally bored, fed to the back teeth with everything and everybody, including themselves, bad-tempered, impatient, and carrying great, Great Big Chips on Their Shoulders, they were brought, like two sulky, bickering children, into court.
Social commentary aside, her narration has a witty, lively tone, reminding me of Wodehouse, which fits the wartime era perfectly, and her accounts of the Blitz and outdated but still topical modes of punishment like hanging are also very interesting: 'Nobody need have any doubt of the swift efficiency with which hanging is practised in our prisons today. It is as quick, humane and efficient a method of execution as any in the world.'
Occasional but unavoidable xenophobia, sexism and snobbery aside, Molly's memoirs are a truly fascinating real-life collection of criminal and medical anecdotes. show less
Murder on the Home Front: A True Story of Morgues, Murderers, and Mysteries during the London Blitz by Molly Lefebure
This is Molly Lefebure's story about her time as a secretary to a forensic pathologist during WWII. It is such an interesting life she lead. Her story is filled with interesting crimes and is written with dry humor throughout. She is the first women secretary to ever have set foot into a mortuary. The crimes she describes are followed through from crime to court case and the reconstruction of how it happened. Once the bombing starts in London, it throws a whole new curve into her story. For show more anyone who is interested in true crime or WWII, this is a must read. We read for our book club and it made for a great discussion. Don't let this one slip by. show less
Murder on the Home Front: A True Story of Morgues, Murderers and Mysteries in the Blitz by Molly Lefebure
I picked up Murder on the Home Front by Molly Lefebure after hearing that it was made into a TV series and wanting to read it before watching the show. I didn't realize that it was a memoir and I certainly didn't know how awesome Lefebure was. The book chronicles some of her adventures in the five years that she spent working as the secretary to pathologist Dr. Keith Simpson in London and the surrounding counties. She highlights exceptional cases in a way that draws the reader in, whether show more it's describing an abnormal autopsy, a search for clues in a muddy field, or a trek down a darkened stairwell during the Blitz. Here is the list of qualities that she came up with when looking for her replacement:
'Typing.
Good verbatim shorthand.
Tact.
Interested in crime.
No objection to mortuaries and corpses.
Reasonably fast runner.'
I loved Molly and I loved this book.
http://webereading.com/2014/10/rip-ix-secrets-and-murder.html show less
'Typing.
Good verbatim shorthand.
Tact.
Interested in crime.
No objection to mortuaries and corpses.
Reasonably fast runner.'
I loved Molly and I loved this book.
http://webereading.com/2014/10/rip-ix-secrets-and-murder.html show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 19
- Members
- 360
- Popularity
- #66,629
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 10
- ISBNs
- 64