Mary Allen, a window-smashing suffragette, became a pioneer policewoman, recruiting and training hundreds of women for Britain's first female police force. Honoured for her work policing munitions factories and bombed towns during the First World War, she was soon infuriating the establishment, travelling the world in her unauthorized uniform, to the acclaim of foreign leaders and the dismay of the British government. Mary's head was turned by a meeting with Hitler, and she joined Mosley's British Union of Fascists, narrowly escaping internment, despite suspicions of spying, secret flights to Germany and Nazi salutes. The liaisons she formed with wealthy heiresses funded an extravagant lifestyle and the formation of a private army of women intended to save the country from Communist aerial attacks, nudity and white slavery. A stubborn, opinionated woman, she was adored by loyal friends, but today her achievements are overshadowed by the eccentricities of her later years.