By Chris Story

Last updated at 15:05, Friday, 15 March 2013

A celebrated Lakeland author has died just weeks before one of her works is to air in a major new TV drama.

Molly Lefebure Gerrish

Former Lakeland Book of the Year winner Molly Lefebure Gerrish, who lived near Keswick, has passed away aged 93.

Her funeral took place in Hampshire yesterday, close to the nursing home where she spent her final few months closer to sons Hilary and Nicholas.

Her death has come before she was able to see a new ITV drama which was based on one of her books.

Murder On The Homefront, a two-part crime thriller, is due to be screened next month.

It is based on her memoir, Evidence For The Crown, which she wrote in 1955 and centres on her time working for a top pathologist in London during World War Two.

The real-life drama for Molly is set in 1941. Actress Tamzin Merchant, who has appeared in Jane Eyre and The Tudors, plays Miss Molly in the drama.

The man she worked for during the war was Home Office pathologist Keith Simpson.

During that time she was involved in the investigation of several notorious murder cases and met executioner Albert Pierrepoint, whose own life story was made into a film.

Mrs Gerrish had lived in the Newlands Valley since 1957.

She had been married to her husband John, who died last November, for 68 years.

Professor Bob Fowler was a neighbour and friend.

He said: “Molly enriched our lives beyond measure, as well as keeping us on our toes with her views, judgements, stories, hopes and affirmation of life which sprang from her rich and varied experiences and indomitable attitude – a serious scholar on the one hand and a delightfully mischievous raconteur on the other.

“Molly was the greatest value, whether simply entertaining guests with a Russian supper prepared in her Aga at home or being a vivacious guest where she could and would more than hold up her end with the great and the good. She was much loved and will be greatly missed.”

A memorial service for Molly and John will take place at 2.30pm on Tuesday, April 2 at Newlands Church.

As well as her wartime memoir, Mrs Gerrish wrote children’s books, a biography of Samuel Coleridge and several novels. She was an expert on Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

In her earlier life, she pioneered work with East End Youth Clubs in London and studied drug addiction and worked as a newspaper reporter.

After moving to Cumbria she came to know the Lake District intimately, becoming a friend of legendary fell walker and writer Alfred Wainright with whom she often walked and who illustrated two of her children’s books.

It was a book of hers on the life of Mrs Coleridge, published in 1986, which won her the Lakeland Book of the Year award.

Mrs Gerrish was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010, having written and published 20 books which reflected her scholarship and life experiences.

ITV have said they hope Murder On The Homefront will “depict London in the Blitz as a city living life on the edge”.

Her book is due to be relaunched to coincide with the drama.

First published at 14:58, Friday, 15 March 2013
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk