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Evidence for the Crown by Molly Lefebure
Apr. 6th, 2014 01:19 amA month or so back, I was poking around to see if there would be a followup to last year's ITV series Murder on the Homefront. I found no such information, but did discover that it was based on the memoir of Molly Lefebure, who worked as pathologist Keith Simpson's secretary during WWII.
Her job included not only accompanying Simpson to crime scenes, but also sitting only a few feet from corpses as they were being autopsied, typing up the results as Simpson dictated his observations. At one point, a colleague of Simpson's asked her if a nice young girl like her was fed up with all these corpses yet, and ready for a less taxing job. When she said she was perfectly content where she was, he went "Oh noes! A suffragette!" and figuratively ran up to hide. This appears to have mostly amused Lefebure, who imagined herself chained to a picket line with her typewriter, typing up descriptions of corpses. Other things that amused her were watching Simpson and his colleagues attempt to figure out what to call various kinds of women's undergarments, and observing that the women of her acquaintance had far sturdier stomachs when it came to descriptions of corpses than the men of her acquaintance did, as long as said men weren't around.
Apparently, parties with Molly went like this:
UNSUSPECTING FEMALE A: So, Molly, what do you do for a living?
TOTALLY KNOWLDGEABLE FEMALE B: OMG No don't get her started, now she's going to be morbid.
MOLLY: I'm the personal secretary of a pathologist, so I go to crime scenes and observe autopsies and-
TOTALLY KNOWLEDGEABLE FEMALE B: MOLLY, I SHALL SWOON IF YOU DON'T STOP!
MANLY MALE A: Molly, you know FEMALE B is a delicate creature who's nervous can't handle that kind of thing. She's not like you and your innards of steel. Not that there's anything wrong with you.
MOLLY: Uh huh.
MANLY MALE A: I mean, if you must talk about it, I am prepared to gird my loins and listen. Like a real man. I need beer first. Do you want beer?
TOTALLY KNOWLEDGEABLE FEMALE B: Molly, now that he isn't looking, I am winking. A lot. This wink means "You, me, lunch, all the gory details? Or is this an alcohol only description?" Oh, wait, he's looking again, back to swooning. Maybe I'll get laid.
UNSUSPECTING FEMALE A: Molly, I think I understand all that winking. I am joining in the winking, because this job sounds awesome. To hear about, I mean.
MOLLY: You people are hilarious.
So, yes, apparently Molly was the gory details life of the party. Though on that note, I should mention that, while she describes injuries and some procedures, Lefebure doesn't get too explicit in most of her descriptions. When she later set out to find a successor after deciding to quit to get married (more on that in a moment) she learned that most people who liked hearing about her work really did only want to hear about it, and thought they could take the job and stay nice and safe in an office and Simpson would just pop in after cleaning himself up to dictate notes.
(Note: potential trigger warnings re: teen girls and rape/murder in the following paragraph)
A number of chapters are pretty straightforward accountings of various cases, but many others also work in commentary about life in England during WWII, and, to a less degree, some social commentary. Most of it is pretty good and interesting, but I should warn for a couple cases of what I can only call slutshaming teenaged girls. In one instance, she describes how she and a beau attended all the hearings for a court case in which a 15 year old girl had an affair with an older man, who claimed she had told him she was older, and later accused him of rape. Lefebure sides entirely with the adult, and expresses relief when he faces no punishment. In that case, she does appear to have listened to and analyzed the evidence, but she also appears to be coming from a place of "teenaged girls who run around having sex would lie to get their way." more concerning is another instance of another girl who she describes as "a girl of fifteen and a half who had already given much trouble by running around with men." Lefebure declares the case "uninteresting," and when the autopsy reveals that the girl was strangled during intercourse, everyone involved decides that it was a case of erotic asphyxiation gone wrong, and not worth further investigation. On the flipside, another case involved a 14 year old girl who was locally known as an "unofficial prostitute" being murdered. They knew who did it but could never gather enough evidence to arrest him, something that appeared to still bother Lefebure are of the writing of this book a decade later.
(End trigger warning.)
After working with Simpson for several years, Molly and her latest beau decided to get married. Molly, after careful consideration, informed her future husband that she didn't think she had more than 8 years maximum of "hard domesticity," and so would marry him only on the condition that, after 8 years, during which time she would do all that was expected of a good wife and mother, he wouldn't object when she ditched the domestic angel role and started writing again. (She was a reporter before working for Simpson.) The copyright date for the book is 1954, so apparently, it worked out exactly how she said it would.
And now I shall take a break from memoirs, as 4 in 1 week is just too much serious reading.
Her job included not only accompanying Simpson to crime scenes, but also sitting only a few feet from corpses as they were being autopsied, typing up the results as Simpson dictated his observations. At one point, a colleague of Simpson's asked her if a nice young girl like her was fed up with all these corpses yet, and ready for a less taxing job. When she said she was perfectly content where she was, he went "Oh noes! A suffragette!" and figuratively ran up to hide. This appears to have mostly amused Lefebure, who imagined herself chained to a picket line with her typewriter, typing up descriptions of corpses. Other things that amused her were watching Simpson and his colleagues attempt to figure out what to call various kinds of women's undergarments, and observing that the women of her acquaintance had far sturdier stomachs when it came to descriptions of corpses than the men of her acquaintance did, as long as said men weren't around.
Apparently, parties with Molly went like this:
UNSUSPECTING FEMALE A: So, Molly, what do you do for a living?
TOTALLY KNOWLDGEABLE FEMALE B: OMG No don't get her started, now she's going to be morbid.
MOLLY: I'm the personal secretary of a pathologist, so I go to crime scenes and observe autopsies and-
TOTALLY KNOWLEDGEABLE FEMALE B: MOLLY, I SHALL SWOON IF YOU DON'T STOP!
MANLY MALE A: Molly, you know FEMALE B is a delicate creature who's nervous can't handle that kind of thing. She's not like you and your innards of steel. Not that there's anything wrong with you.
MOLLY: Uh huh.
MANLY MALE A: I mean, if you must talk about it, I am prepared to gird my loins and listen. Like a real man. I need beer first. Do you want beer?
TOTALLY KNOWLEDGEABLE FEMALE B: Molly, now that he isn't looking, I am winking. A lot. This wink means "You, me, lunch, all the gory details? Or is this an alcohol only description?" Oh, wait, he's looking again, back to swooning. Maybe I'll get laid.
UNSUSPECTING FEMALE A: Molly, I think I understand all that winking. I am joining in the winking, because this job sounds awesome. To hear about, I mean.
MOLLY: You people are hilarious.
So, yes, apparently Molly was the gory details life of the party. Though on that note, I should mention that, while she describes injuries and some procedures, Lefebure doesn't get too explicit in most of her descriptions. When she later set out to find a successor after deciding to quit to get married (more on that in a moment) she learned that most people who liked hearing about her work really did only want to hear about it, and thought they could take the job and stay nice and safe in an office and Simpson would just pop in after cleaning himself up to dictate notes.
(Note: potential trigger warnings re: teen girls and rape/murder in the following paragraph)
A number of chapters are pretty straightforward accountings of various cases, but many others also work in commentary about life in England during WWII, and, to a less degree, some social commentary. Most of it is pretty good and interesting, but I should warn for a couple cases of what I can only call slutshaming teenaged girls. In one instance, she describes how she and a beau attended all the hearings for a court case in which a 15 year old girl had an affair with an older man, who claimed she had told him she was older, and later accused him of rape. Lefebure sides entirely with the adult, and expresses relief when he faces no punishment. In that case, she does appear to have listened to and analyzed the evidence, but she also appears to be coming from a place of "teenaged girls who run around having sex would lie to get their way." more concerning is another instance of another girl who she describes as "a girl of fifteen and a half who had already given much trouble by running around with men." Lefebure declares the case "uninteresting," and when the autopsy reveals that the girl was strangled during intercourse, everyone involved decides that it was a case of erotic asphyxiation gone wrong, and not worth further investigation. On the flipside, another case involved a 14 year old girl who was locally known as an "unofficial prostitute" being murdered. They knew who did it but could never gather enough evidence to arrest him, something that appeared to still bother Lefebure are of the writing of this book a decade later.
(End trigger warning.)
After working with Simpson for several years, Molly and her latest beau decided to get married. Molly, after careful consideration, informed her future husband that she didn't think she had more than 8 years maximum of "hard domesticity," and so would marry him only on the condition that, after 8 years, during which time she would do all that was expected of a good wife and mother, he wouldn't object when she ditched the domestic angel role and started writing again. (She was a reporter before working for Simpson.) The copyright date for the book is 1954, so apparently, it worked out exactly how she said it would.
And now I shall take a break from memoirs, as 4 in 1 week is just too much serious reading.
