A Girl in Blue

Lois Willoughby-Easter was born in Cheltenham in 1948, but when her parents separated she and her mother relocated to south London. There she attended several schools, but due to her disrupted upbringing her academic achievements were limited. However, after gaining a Bachelor of Education degree with Art at East Anglia Polytechnic in 1990, for 25 years she worked in London as a primary school teacher, determined to try to unlock each child's true potential. On retirement Lois decided to record the experiences of her early life and the events which, in 1967, led to her becoming a Metropolitan Woman Police Constable at the age of nineteen. Her career was varied, and although Women Police had the same powers of arrest as their male colleagues, Lois often undertook the specialist work which women officers did prior to their integration with their male counterparts in 1973. Lois lives with her husband, a retired long-serving police officer, in a restored farmhouse in Norfolk. They are both interested in Police history, having carried out much research through the Metropolitan Police historical collection. Lois is also a member of the Metropolitan Women Police Association. She has had several poems published and is a confident artist, inspired mainly by the wonderful landscapes Norfolk has to offer.