It’s quite a while since I have written anything about the author known as the “Queen of Crime”, Agatha Christie. I first read one of her books when my mum was in a book club which sent out a book once a month – fact, fiction, romance, classic, crime, travel – all sorts of books. It was The Companion Book Club, and you can still find copies in charity shops and second-hand book shops. The book Mum had, contained two stories, “Mrs McGinty’s Dead”, and “They Do It With Mirrors” which I read many times. I may have borrowed other Christie books from the library and when I was older bought many, if not most of her novels in paperback. Sadly, I have lost most of the Agatha’s I once had.
Agatha was born in 1890, in Torquay, which is just over eight and a half miles from where we are staying, here in Totnes. She is world famous for her detective stories, and of course her most famous characters are Hercules Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. She wrote other “detective” books, six were about Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, and others which I don’t really like, with the main characters of Harley Quinn and Mr Satterthwaite. She also wrote romances under the nom-de-plume of Mary Westmacott. She had a phenomenal output, and an extraordinary imagination and should rightly be thought of as a great writer.
I mentioned in a previous post that my two writing friends and I have come to Devon to have a few days writing, and yesterday we took time out of our creativity to go the less than a dozen miles to Greenway. This was the home for many many years of Agatha. It is now under the care of the National Trust and fans and other interested people can visit – which is what we did yesterday. It was a lovely day, so the beautiful white house glowed in the sunshine. We went in and were shown around and it was fascinating to see where Agatha had lived and worked. During the war, American soldiers, a unit of Coastguards, were billeted there and one of them painted a most magnificent mural around the top of the walls in the library.
We left the house and wandered out into the grounds and went into a wooded area following a path which lead down to a viewing point over the River Dart, to the boat house which unfortunately wasn’t open, and to a small quay from where the guests at the house could swim and take boat trips.
We had a marvellous day and I would really recommend a visit to anyone, whether you’re an Agatha fan or not!
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/devon/greenwa
Lois Elsden 