Hester Leggatt
| Hester Leggatt | |
|---|---|
| File:Hester Leggatt 1924.pngHester Leggatt 1924.png | |
| Born | 1905 India |
| 💀Died | July 26, 1995 (age 89) Chilton, Buckinghamshire, EnglandJuly 26, 1995 (age 89) |
| 🏳️ Citizenship | British |
| 💼 Occupation | Secretary |
| 👔 Employer | MI5 |
| Known for | Operation Mincemeat |
| 👪 Relatives | Bill Leggatt (brother) |
Hester May Murray Leggatt[1][2] was a British MI5 employee. She is best known for her contributions to the World War II deception mission Operation Mincemeat.
Early life, education, and family
Leggatt was born in British-occupied India in 1905. Before World War I, her family returned to the United Kingdom where she attended Tormead School and Wycombe Abbey. She completed secretarial training at St. James' Secretarial College in London.[3]
Her brother, Bill Leggatt, was a lieutenant colonel for the British Army, serving in the Royal Artillery in World War II. He died in August 1946 after a year of poor health as a result of his war service.[4]
Career
In the early 1930s, Leggatt worked as a secretary for Osbert Sitwell and for Golden Cockerel Press.[5]
During World War II, she worked as an administrative assistant for the B1a section of MI5, which was responsible for managing Double Cross agents.[3] According to an account by Jean Leslie, a younger secretary in the section, Leggatt headed the secretarial unit with the utmost seriousness, demanding "absolute obedience and perfect efficiency" from the other administrative assistants.[6]
As the most senior woman in the department, Leggatt was tasked with writing false love letters for the British deception mission Operation Mincemeat.[6] The letters, alongside fake intelligence documents, were to be planted on a corpse dressed as a Royal Marine in a ruse to trick Hitler into moving troops out of Sicily.[5][7] Though Leggatt was unmarried, and would remain so for the rest of her life, the letters she wrote in the guise of a fictional fiancee named Pam were described as "chattering pastiches of a young woman madly in love, and with little time for grammar."[6]
I do think dearest that seeing people like you off at railway stations is one of the poorer forms of sport. A train going out can leave a howling great gap in ones life & one had to try madly - & quite in vain - to fill it with all the things one used to enjoy a short five weeks ago. That lovely golden day we spent together oh! I know it has been said before, but if only time could stand still for just a minute - But that line of thought is too pointless. Pull your socks up Pam & don't be a silly little fool
— Hester Leggatt, in one of the false love letters written by 'Pam'
The love letters acted as corroborative details that helped sell the fiction that the corpse was a real British soldier. The official report on Operation Mincemeat described Leggatt's letters as achieving "the thrill and pathos of a war engagement with great success."[6]
After the war, Leggatt worked for the British Council.[3]
Later life and death
Leggatt never married. After retiring, she moved to Chilton, Buckinghamshire where she died in a nursing home on July 26, 1995. She was 89.[1]
In Media
Leggatt was first portrayed by Jak Malone in the stage musical Operation Mincemeat, which premiered in 2019 and is currently running both on the West End and on Broadway as of April 2025[update][8][9]. Some lyrics in the musical's song Dear Bill were intentionally lifted directly from Leggatt's letters.[10]
Darling, why did we go and meet in the middle of a war, such a silly thing for anybody to do
— Hester Leggatt as 'Pam', in love letter dated Wednesday 21st
Why did we meet in the middle of a war? What a silly thing for anyone to do
— Hester Leggatt, in the song Dear Bill, Operation Mincemeat: A New Musical
In 2024, Malone won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Musical for the performance.[11] The role of "Hester Leggatt & Others" in the Operation Mincemeat musical has also been performed by Christian Andrews and Jonty Peach.[12][13]
Penelope Wilton played the role of Hester Leggatt in the 2021 film Operation Mincemeat.[14]
Historical research
Leggatt's possible contributions to the operation were first brought to mainstream attention by Ben Macintyre's 2010 book Operation Mincemeat, though the book misspelled her name as "Leggett".[15]
A group of fans of the stage musical Operation Mincemeat, known as Mincefluencers, were inspired to research into the real life of the character Hester Leggett, as little was known about her. They managed to get in contact with MI5 and were able to find out some key information about Hester. They discovered that her surname was spelled Leggatt, and that she worked for Osbert Sitwell in the 1930s, for MI5 during the Second World War and later for the British Council.[16][5][7] On 11 December 2023, a plaque was installed at the Fortune Theatre in commemoration of Hester Leggatt and her service to her country.[17]
A book about the discovery of Leggatt's contributions to the war effort is set to be published in June 2025. It was written by theatre archivist Erin Edwards (who was involved in the Mincefluencers research campaign[18]) and is titled "Finding Hester: The Incredible Story Of The Hidden Woman Whose Love Letters Changed World War II In Operation Mincemeat."[19][20]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Hester Leggatt". London Remembers. Retrieved 2025-04-23.
- ↑ Callus, Greg (9 July 2023). "Secretary who turned the tide of history cannot be forgotten". The Independent. London. ProQuest 2834530002.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "From the Archives: Hester Leggatt (C37, Barry, 1924)". Wycombe Abbey. February 1, 2024. Retrieved 2025-04-23.
- ↑ Leggatt, William Murray, Winchester College at War, Winchester College. Retrieved 19 February 2019.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Macintyre, Ben (2023-09-09). "How musical fans forced MI5 to come clean". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 2023-09-09.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Macintyre, Ben (2010). Operation Mincemeat : The True Spy Story That Changed the Course of World War II. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 73–79. ISBN 978-0-7475-9868-8. Search this book on
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Dear Hester: how fans uncovered a missing piece of Operation Mincemeat's history". The Stage. Retrieved 2023-09-28.
- ↑ "'Operation Mincemeat' extends Broadway run for third time". Broadway News. 2025-03-24. Retrieved 2025-04-23.
- ↑ "Operation Mincemeat gets its 14th extension at the West End's Fortune Theatre in London". West End Theatre. 2025-03-03. Retrieved 2025-04-23.
- ↑ Schwartz, Katerina (8 May 2023). "The Quartet Behind Operation Mincemeat". Broadway Baby. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
I like that Hester did write the real letter. And the phrase, ‘why did we meet in the middle of a war, what a silly thing for anyone to do.’ That feels just so lovely.
- ↑ "Olivier Awards 2024 Winners Announced". Official London Theatre. Retrieved 2025-04-23.
- ↑ "Christian Andrews Biography". Operation Mincemeat. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
- ↑ "Jonty Peach Biography". Operation Mincemeat. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
- ↑ "Dame Penelope Wilton on starring in Operation Mincemeat with Colin Firth and why Ricky Gervais was desperate to work with her". Virgin Radio UK. 2022-04-12. Retrieved 2025-04-23.
- ↑ Marshall, Alex (2025-03-26). "How a Broadway Musical Revealed a Family's World War II Spy Secrets". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2025-04-23.
- ↑ "Fan campaign confirms lost Operation Mincemeat character details". What's On Stage. 2023-08-30. Retrieved 2023-09-09.
- ↑ "Operation Mincemeat to unveil plaque for Hester Leggatt following search for character's history". What's On Stage. 2023-11-24. Retrieved 2023-11-24.
- ↑ Al-Hassan, Aliya; Edwards, Erin (3 November 2023). "Guest Blog: 'I Couldn't Let the Matter Go': Erin Edwards on OPERATION MINCEMEAT, MI5 and the Campaign to #FindHester". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2025-04-23.
- ↑ "Finding Hester by Claudia Caplan Wolff, Rose Crossgrove, Jack Lawrence, Greg Callus, Erin Edwards". Shakespeare and Company. Retrieved 2025-04-23.
- ↑ "Finding Hester". Andrew Lownie Literary Agency. Retrieved 2025-04-23.
This article "Hester Leggatt" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Hester Leggatt. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
