"Maigret Goes to School" - Outsider accused. Secrets buried. Maigret probes a hostile village.

Classic Old Time Radio, Vintage radio shows, the Golden Age of radio, murder, mystery, drama, comedy, sci-fi, westerns. In "Maigret Goes to School", the inspector is summoned to the insular village of Saint-André-sur-Mer after the murder of Léonie Birard, a universally disliked postmistress who was shot through her window. Her death exposes the town’s tightly wound secrets, as she had access to everyone’s mail and gossip. The villagers quickly accuse the local schoolmaster—an outsider from Paris—whose presence alone stirs resentment. Maigret, sensing the hostility and prejudice beneath the surface, begins to unravel the truth not through evidence, but through the psychology of a community eager to protect its own. As Maigret interviews reluctant schoolboys and skeptical townsfolk, he discovers that the real motive lies buried in old grudges and provincial pride. The case becomes less about the murder itself and more about the dynamics of a village that punishes difference. With quiet persistence and a touch of irony—especially in his failed attempts to sample the region’s famed oysters—Maigret peels back the layers of suspicion to reveal a killer hiding in plain sight. 09 - 'Maigret Goes to School' (Sunday 12th June 1977) Joseph Gastin, a school-master from Saint-André-sur-Mer, near La Rochelle, has been waiting for Maigret. The ex-postmistress of his little town, Léonie Birard, had been killed, shot in the eye with a .22 from some distance, as she looked out the window of her house. Gastin, regarded as an outsider in the village, is sure that he is regarded as the prime suspect. Maigret calls Lieutenant Daniélou and tells him he'll bring Gastin back, and learns from him of new evidence: one of the boys in Gastin's class, Marcel Sellier, has testified that he'd seen the teacher coming from the tool shed at the time the murder took place, and there was a .22 in the shed, belonging to Jean-Paul Gastin, his son. Gastin denied having gone to the shed. Gastin is brought to the jail in La Rochelle while Maigret gets the feel of the town, and starts his interviews to find the truth. First published in 1954 as "Maigret à l'école". Translation in 1957 as "Maigret Goes to School" by Daphne Woodward and adapted for radio by Edward Bruce. With Maurice Denham [Chief Inspector Jules Maigret], Michael Gough [Georges Simenon], Michael Spice [Joseph Gastin], Madi Hedd [Madame Gastin], Denise Bryer [Jean-Paul Gastin], Geoffrey Collins [Inspector Danielou], Ronald Herdman [Dr. Bresselles], Jean England [Marcel Sellier], Michael Harbour [Marcellin Rateau], Rosemary Miller [Joseph Rateau], Michael Goldie [Louis Paumelle], Shirley Dixon [Maria Smelker], and Gavin Campbell [Ferdinand Cornu]. Produced and directed by Betty Davies 45 minutes Georges Simenon, the prolific Belgian writer who created the iconic detective Jules Maigret. Simenon wrote 75 Maigret novels and 28 short stories, blending psychological depth with atmospheric settings and understated suspense. His work has been translated into more than 50 languages and adapted across radio, television, and film—making him one of the most widely read European authors of the 20th century.