No book is ever written without help from other people and this is perhaps especially true of this one. I had been fascinated by this case ever since picking up a copy of Donald McCormick’s Murder By Witchcraft in a second-hand bookshop many years ago. The case is tortuous but my researches were made simpler by being able to go to the right people to find out the little bits of nitty gritty to fill in the gaps. So, my thanks go to David Maidment, who knows everything there is to know about trains and to Helen McArthur, Community Hub Officer of the Central Library, Middlesbrough who had the very book I needed on her shelves. The staff at the Worcester Archive were helpful and interested and my thanks also go to them.
I would like to say a special thank you to Heather Williams for giving me the chance to write the first full length book on the Hagley Wood case. I would, as always, like to thank my editor Gaynor Haliday, for her sensitive work on my words and for her very positive feedback.
I always thank my wife, Carol, for all the work she does when a book is in production, but she needs special thanks this time. She has been talking this case over with me for over fifty years and knows it as well as anyone. She helped me with note taking at the Archive, with the complexities of wartime underwear and even knitted a section of a jumper, to see how it would look in the real world. So, once again, I say it; thank you.
M.J. Trow
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