Agatha Christie and the Eleven Missing Days
Page 34
Albert Whiteley of the Harry Codd Dance Band who observed ‘Mrs Neele’ in the Harrogate Hydro ballroom (Christine Wilde)
The flyleaf of Partners in Crime personally inscribed by Agatha to Nan: ‘To sweet Nan of Old Chelsea from Agatha’ (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Nan outside the front door of 78 Chelsea Park Gardens in London (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Nan’s niece Eleanor Watts, later Lady Campbell-Orde, who visited Agatha at Abney Hall on 16 December 1926 after the writer was found (Judith and Graham Gardner)
On 24 January 1927 the Daily Express was just one of the many newspapers that reported Agatha’s departure to the Canary Islands, five weeks after her disappearance (British Library)
Left to right, Agatha’s nephew Jack with his father Jimmy, Agatha’s brother-in-law, and Jimmy and Nan’s father, James II (Judith and Graham Gardner)
On 17 September 1930 the Daily Mirror was one of several newspapers to report Agatha’s marriage to Max Mallowan (British Library)
The Daily Film Renter, 27 April 1931. A trade paper advertisement for the film Alibi, based on Agatha’s novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, starring Austin Trevor as Hercule Poirot (Jared Cade)
The Daily Film Renter, 18 August 1931, showing scenes from the film Black Coffee which was based on Agatha’s original play and once again featured Austin Trevor as Hercule Poirot (Jared Cade)
An inscription from Agatha to Nan in Dumb Witness: ‘To my not so dumb friend Nan “the smelly kipper” from her old friend Starry Eyes (?)’ (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Agatha’s 33-acre property Greenway, near Churston Ferrers in Devon, was the setting for the Hercule Poirot mysteries Five Little Pigs and Dead Man’s Folly (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Archaeologist Guilford Bell who helped Agatha renovate Greenway; the writer regarded him ‘almost like a son’ (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Agatha’s daughter Rosalind resembled her father Archie, late 1930s (Judith and Graham Gardner)
An inscription from Agatha to Nan in Absent in the Spring: ‘To my dear Mrs Kon from M.W. in memory of the SS Marama Honolulu’ (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Rosalind’s friend Susan North whose personal life inspired a sub-plot for Absent in the Spring (Judith and Graham Gardner)
News Review, 16 December 1948, featuring Agatha on the cover. The 58 year-old writer’s advice to would-be writers was admirably succinct: ‘(1) Pay much attention to length and form and little to other writers’ opinions; (2) decide whose style you are going to copy, then keep on until you produce your own style.’ (Jared Cade)
Clockwise from top left: Charlotte Fisher, Agatha, Nan, Jean Watts (nee Blomfield) and Mary Fisher outside Greenway (Judith and Graham Gardner)
An inscription from Agatha to Nan in Murder Is Easy: ‘To my old friend B. Hinds from Agatha’ (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Agatha and Nan’s daughter Judith, 1950s (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Agatha with her brother-in-law Jimmy Watts outside his sister Nan’s house in Paignton, Devon, June 1957 (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Judith and Graham Gardner in the Middle East during the winter of 1962; Graham photographed the artefacts unearthed by Agatha’s second husband Max Mallowan, the celebrated archaeologist (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Agatha’s last inscription to Nan, shortly before her friend’s death in December 1959, appeared in Cat Among the Pigeons: ‘To Nan who once went hunting schools with me!’ (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Left to right, taking coffee after lunch at Greenway in the late 1960s: Judith, Diana Kirkbride – Max’s former pupil who also took part in the Nimrud excavations from 1951 onwards – Agatha and archaeologist Jeffery Orchard (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Also present, left to right, Cecil Mallowan, his sons John and Peter, and his brother Max, Agatha’s husband. The writer gave the royalties from her book Hickory Dickory Dock to John and Peter (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Judith sailing with Agatha’s grandson Mathew Prichard on the Gardners’ yacht off Torquay in the late 1960s (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Max and Agatha, photographed by the Daily Sketch on holiday in Toledo, Spain, 8 November 1967 (Jared Cade)
The brilliant acting talents of Vanessa Redgrave and Dustin Hoffman were not sufficient to prevent Agatha bombing at the box office; the fictional elements of the film, which revolved around the disappearance, enraged the writer’s surviving family (Jared Cade)
Col. Archie Christie (Timothy Dalton) identifies Mrs Neele as Agatha Christie (Vanessa Redgrave) in Agatha which was shot on location at the Harrogate Hydro (Jared Cade)
Agatha in conversation towards the end of her life (Judith and Graham Gardner)
Lady Mallowan (Barbara Parker) after Max’s death, c.1988 (British School of Archaeology and British Library)
Judith Gardner with some of the many personally inscribed detective novels and Mary Westmacott romances that her mother Nan Watts received from Agatha Christie (Judith and Graham Gardner)