James, P.D.

English crime writer born in Oxford as Phyllis Dorothy James. She graduated from the Cambridge High School for Girls in 1937. She served in the Red Cross during the war, and in 1941 she married Ernest Connor Bantry White. Although she dreamed of becoming a writer she helped her husband pass medical school while looking after the couple's daughters. After his return from the war, her husband suffered mental illness, and he eventually died in 1964. James worked in hospital administration and government service. Amongst other things, she was a justice for the peace and member of the BBC board of directors.