![]() ![]() The 'emotionless efficiency' that made him a decorated pilot made him unsuited to domesticity, and he had a 'violent dislike of illness, death and trouble of any kind.' He was particularly unfeeling when Agatha's mother died in the spring of 1926. Though dashing and attractive, he was 'increasingly disagreeable' in a civilian environment. She met Archie Christie, an air-ace in the Royal Flying Corps who bizarrely possessed 'a complexion that reminded her of roses', and married him hastily in December 1914. She qualified as a pharmacist in 1918, and always prided herself on an exact and professional knowledge of 'the bottles of arsenic and digitalis' - which were to turn up frequently in her whodunits. She was a lonely child, 'creating tales of intrigue and adventure', and amusing herself by learning about poisons.ĭuring World War I, Agatha worked as a nurse. Inside she was screaming.Īgatha Mary Clarissa Miller had been raised in genteel Torquay. For a start - what a lot of pent-up fury there was and this will have been building up for a very long time. But Agatha's going round the twist so spectacularly seems more interesting than that, more extreme. The doctors decided it was 'a clear case of loss of memory and loss of identification'. ![]() She was eventually recognised in Harrogate by 'a part-time saxophonist named Bob Leeming'. Agatha's disappearance became a national news story. He was more annoyed at having his golf disrupted than he was about his missing wife. She'd checked in as a Mrs Teresa Neele.īack in 'Surrey County', Archie's 'attitude of irritation and frustration' made him a prime suspect. She dressed in bright clothes, sang and played the piano in the bar, and generally behaved vivaciously and confidently - all wholly out of character. Here her habitual shyness and diffidence quite vanished. ![]() She abandoned her car, a Morris Cowley four-seater, in a chalk pit and made her way from what Hack calls 'Surrey County' and turned up in a hotel in Harrogate, in Yorkshire County. He found he could no longer even meet Agatha's gaze, particularly after he'd blurted out that he'd been having an affair with Nancy Neele, a 25-year-old secretary at the Imperial Continental Gas Association.Īgatha went into shock and had a dramatic nervous breakdown within minutes, a record that may still hold. He'd started to avoid her, spending the night at his club and the weekends on the golf links. There was an insatiable desire for violence and revenge bubbling within her - and the cause of this is not hard to seek.Īt her home in Sunningdale, in December 1926, Agatha 'knew her husband wasn't ever coming home'.įor years Archie Christie had patronised his wife, dismissing her desire to write stories as 'little more than amusing diversions, like needlepoint or gardening'. What is commendable about Richard Hack's new biography is that he too refuses to be content with Dame Agatha's snug and congenial image. There's a surprising real viciousness and defiance there, which has long been overlooked. That, anyway, is the image projected by the beloved David Suchet/Peter Ustinov or Joan Hickson/Geraldine McEwan productions, which tend to be quaint and are even a bit camp. Everything is restrained - and in good taste. When the bodies begin to pile up, there are no descriptions of smashed brains or blood and entrails drenching the drawing room walls. The atmosphere of her thrillers seems that of an idyllic England, with steam trains and Art Deco cocktail shakers, cosy Devon cream teas and vintage cars. Like Miss Marple, Dame Agatha seemed a sweet old thing, with those old-fashioned glasses, shapeless clothes, and legs in brown stockings that ballooned from poor circulation. The film and television adaptations continue to swell the coffers. When her only child, Rosalind Hicks, passed away in 2004, the estate was by then worth in excess of £300 million. Dame Agatha herself died in 1976, aged 85. ![]()
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