Air Commandant Dame Lena Annette Jean Conan Doyle, Lady Bromet, DBE, AE, ADC (21 December 1912 – 18 November 1997) was a British Women's Royal Air Force officer.[1]
The second daughter of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, she was brought up at her parents' country house, Windlesham, in Crowborough, Sussex. A spirited child, with two older brothers, she was described as a tomboy by Harry Houdini. Her childhood nickname was "Billy", and letters to her father would be signed "Your loving son". On her tenth birthday, however, she announced that she had decided to be a girl after all. She then went to her Aunt Ida's school, Granville House in Eastbourne, Sussex, where she took after her mother in developing a love of nature.[2] As a schoolgirl she was a classmate and friend of Joan Boniface Winnifrith, who would become film and television actress Anna Lee. Winnifrith was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's god-daughter.
- ^ She was officially gazetted whenever promoted or honoured as Conan-Doyle, though often without the hyphen.
- ^ The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle by Andrew Lycett, pages 436, 467 (2007, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London & Viking, New York); ISBN 0-7432-7523-3