Can't Get Used to Losing You

 

One of the best.  One of the greatest.  One of the all-time legends.

Thanks for the songs; thanks for the voice. You were incredible.

Andy Williams 1927-2012 

The Queen of Crime's Torbay (Part Three)

A few weeks ago, Lizzie and I ventured out onto the River Dart to visit Greenway, Agatha Christie's holiday home.  The estate is reached by an hour-long ferry ride from Totnes, quite picturesque in the summer sunshine.  With each passing minute on board, you get the feeling that you are heading deeper and deeper into the Devon countryside, the cities and motorways of Britain melting away into the calmly lapping water and birdsong of an unchanged landscape. 

Scenes on the River Dart

 
Agatha Christie and her second husband Max Mallowan bought the Greenway Estate in 1938 on the sale of her childhood home, Ashfield.  She would later describe it as "the loveliest place in the world."  Greenway was the inspiration for her books Dead Man's Folly and Five Little Pigs.  Disembarking, we waste no time in climbing the hill to the estate - we only have three hours before the ferry takes us back again - and we are soon strolling the beautiful grounds.  To me, it's like a wonderful hideaway, somehow very separate from everywhere else, a private paradise in which to enjoy life.  I can see how a writer would thrive here.

National Trust Sign

Greenway House

Inside the house, where photography is forbidden, the rooms are large but homely.  What I didn't realise was that the family were such big fans of collecting - the rooms of Greenway are full of objects, artefacts and curiosities with no apparent theme.  I particularly enjoyed the archaeological aspect to some of the books and exhibits (Max Mallowan was, afterall, a prominent archaeologist who specialised in the Middle East), and the library, which comes complete with a frieze painted by a US Navy officer in 1943.

The library and frieze (scanned from a National Trust postcard)

The inner hall (scanned from a National Trust postcard)

Fascinating though the house is, for me the real jewel of this National Trust property is the grounds.  In the sunshine it is a pleasure to explore the borders and greenhouses, kept wonderfully and colourfully by the gardeners.  It is all too easy to imagine this place fifty years ago on a peaceful summer afternoon, a couple playing tennis on the walled court, or practicing croquet on the lawn.

Scenes from Greenway's gardens

So, what is the final opinion of this Agatha Christie newbie?  As someone who has never pursued an interest in her before, I must say that I'm converted.  Delving into her life, seeing so many local places that were her literal inspiration, exploring a tiny piece of her world, has given me an appetite for more.  Last week at Torquay Museum I bought one of her books - Murder on the Orient Express.  Over the next week or two I'm going to settle down and read it, and report back here with my review.  If I like it - and I hope I will - it could be the first of many Agatha Christie novels I enjoy.

Dame Agatha Christie 1890-1976.  Thank you for sharing with us a piece of your world.

The Queen of Crime's Torbay (Part Two)

Leaving the Princess Gardens and the Pavilion behind us, our next destination is Torquay Museum, home of the only Agatha Christie-dedicated gallery in the world.  It's strictly no-photos in the gallery (apparently due to copyright), but in its cabinets visitors can see photographic collections, original manuscripts, handwritten notes, books, plays and memorabilia from her famous characters Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.  In a temporary gallery, an exhibition has been put on to coincide with the festival, entitled Agatha Christie - Cover Story, Original Book Cover Artwork by Tom Adams.  This exhibit presents a series of original book cover paintings by the American born, British artist Tom Adams, who produced more than 100 paperback cover paintings for Christie's books, many of which are very iconic. 

Tom Adams covers for Agatha Christie.  Top Left: Death in the Clouds.  Top Right:  Murder at the Vicarage

Torquay Museum

If it's mid afternoon, it's definitely time for a Devonshire cream tea, and we leave the museum ready to sit down and indulge.  All over the bay, local businesses have been getting into Christie spirit, and Torquay's Living Coasts is no exception - they've spruced up their Room with a View to offer guests a taste of 1930s afternoon tea.  Dotted around the room are various Christie novels for us to dip in and out of before delicious tea, scones, and finger sandwiches arrive at our table.  The view over the bay is exceptional, the company delightful, the experience entirely sophisticated and very tasty.

Tea on the Terrace at Living Coasts

Just around the corner from Living Coasts lies a lovely little beach called Beacon Cove.  Hardly ever frequented by tourists (I imagine due to its hidden location) I always enjoy a little time here to sit and watch the waves lap onto the shore.  In Agatha Christie's day, this was the ladies bathing cove, and she frequently came here to swim.  One day, a teenage Christie fell into trouble in the water and nearly drowned.  Fortunately, she was spotted and rescued by a boatman.

Beacon Cove

Opposite the entrance to Beacon Cove, and overlooking it, is the Royal Torbay Yacht Club where Agatha's father, Frederick Miller, was a prominent member. Scandalously, the men of the early 20th Century yacht club would frequently gather at the front window, to try and catch a glimpse of the female bathers in the cove. 

The Royal Torbay Yacht Club (note the naughty front window)

The final port of call on the Agatha Christie Mile is the Imperial Hotel.  One of Torbay's grandest hotels, the Imperial features in several Agatha Christie novels.  In the opening chapter of Peril at End House, Captain Arthur Hastings apparently describes the hotel as "In its own grounds on the headland overlooking the sea.  The gardens of the hotel lay below us freely interspersed with palm trees.  The sea was of a deep and lovely blue."  The hotel is also the setting for the final chapter of Sleeping Murder and The Body in the Library.  Agatha also attended many social events at the hotel.

We have completed the Agatha Christie Mile, but our day is not yet over.  Back at the harbourside, the tourist information centre has got itself into fine Agatha Christie form, a decorated window seeing Hercule Poirot looking over a roadside murder. Inside, a Christie corner has been put into place, selling novels, guidebooks and postcards, a whole host of crime for the Christie enthusiast!

The window of the Tourist Information Centre

Inside the Tourist Information Centre

Our day on the Agatha Christie trail is nearly done, but it would surely not be complete without witnessing a murder mystery unfold before our eyes.  For this, it has to be the Princess Theatre which, for one week only, is entertaining the Agatha Christie Theatre Company and their production of Murder on the Nile.  What follows is two hours of murderous suspense mixed with just the right amount of comedy, a brilliant and fitting way to end a day discovering Agatha Christie, her life, time and work.

Torquay's Princess Theatre

Murder on the Nile poster

The cast take a bow

The Queen of Crime's Torbay (Part One)

Every September, Torquay plays host to a festival celebrating the life and work of its favourite daughter - Agatha Christie.  We've all seen her work transformed on the television, with the likes of Miss Marple and Poirot gracing the screen with their supreme sleuthing, but who amongst us has really explored the life and times of the Queen of Crime?  I certainly haven't - I've never read a Christie book before in my life - but if there's one week for a Devonian to delve a little deeper, this must surely be it.

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890 at the Victorian mansion of Ashfield, in what would then have been the top end of Torquay.  She spent many happy childhood years here with her parents, Frederick and Clara Miller, and her elder siblings Monty and Madge, walking down to the sea or exploring the lanes at the top end of town.  Nowadays, the Ashfield mansion is a distant memory; demolished in the 1960s to make way for a modern apartment block that surely bares little resemblance to its predecessor, the Torbay Civic Society have at least graced the spot with a blue plaque, and it is here that our journey around Christie's Torquay begins.  It's a quiet road, with few redeeming features and plenty of on-street parking, a rather innocuous place in which to begin a day discovering the author who has been globally out-sold by only William Shakespeare and the Bible.

Ashfield Historic Site, birthplace of Agatha Christie

Five days after her birth, Agatha was taken to All Saints Church, the parish church of Torquay's oldest parish, for her baptism.  She continued to worship here as a child, sitting in the front row every Sunday with her father.  To celebrate this link to the crime writer's formative years, the church has been holding a flower festival all through the week.  Lizzie and I enter the cool interior, said to be little changed since Agatha's day, where some pretty displays have been laid around the church.  More interestingly, however, are the Christie artefacts that the church has acquired - an old record player sits nonchalantly atop a piano, accompanied by some Christie novels, whilst hanging on the back wall, pride of place, is a copy of Agatha's birth certificate.  Sensing we are on the Christie trail, we are approached by a lady who tells us a little about the church and the Christie connection.  Miss Marple and Poirot actors are both in town, she tells us.  Miss Marple is a local lady who does the job for free; Poirot, she says, commands a fee of £800 for his appearance!

A copy of Agatha Christie's birth certificate

Flower Festival Exhibits, All Saints Church

All Saints Church, Torre

Leaving the peaceful All Saints Church behind us, we make for the seafront, to the Agatha Christie Mile.  It begins at the Grand Hotel, a stone's throw from the railway station, site of Agatha and Archie Christie's honeymoon on Christmas Eve, 1914.  Archie was a qualified aviator who had joined the Royal Flying Corps, and he had to return to the war in France on Boxing Day.  Agatha kept herself busy during the First World War by working in the Voluntary Aid Detachment of the Red Cross Hospital in Torquay, and ended up working in the dispensary.

The Grand Hotel, Torquay

The sun breaks through the clouds and beats down on the English Riviera, the perfect weather for strolling a garden.  Fortunately for us, there is one just around the corner - our next stop on the Mile, Torre Abbey Gardens.  The abbey itself is under renovation, but the gardens remain open to the public, and have been beautifully maintained by the enthusiastic groundstaff.  Agatha was also enthusiastic about plants, with particular reference to their medicinal powers, using their potions and poisons in many of her murder mystery books.  This has inspired the Torre Abbey gardeners to open the Agatha Christie Potent Plant Collection, displaying a collection of plants of toxicity.  There is also a trail included where Christie fans can attempt to recognise and name the Christie stories from clues in the garden.  This is no good for Christie amateurs Lizzie and I, but the gardens are a gentle pleasure, instantly transporting us out of Torquay and into another world.

In Torre Abbey Gardens

Even with the very changeable weather, a stroll along the seafront remains a pleasurable experience, and is intrinsically entwined with the Agatha Christie story.  Princess Pier was first built in 1890, the year of Agatha's birth, and was a favourite rollerskating spot of the youngster.  The Princess Gardens were featured in her novel, The ABC Murders, and it was following a Wagner concert at Torquay Pavilion that Archie Christie proposed to Agatha Miller in 1912.  Wandering into the pavilion, there was a striking atmosphere of faded opulence, but a little look around revealed the design and architecture of those decadent days when class was in the air, when the music played through the night and the sun never set on the young and the wealthy.

Princess Pier, Torquay

Princess Gardens, Torquay

Torquay Pavilion

Opposite the pavilion entrance, in the gardens of Cary Parade, a bust of Agatha Christie stands tall and proud.  It was erected to celebrate the centenary year of her birth, 1990, and was unveiled by Agatha's daughter Rosalind Hicks.  Dutch sculptor Carol Van Dem Boom-Cairns created the masterpiece, which has become a popular attraction with visitors the world over.  It seems fitting that this bust should be here, the centre of Torquay and the centre point of the Agatha Christie Mile.

The Agatha Christie Bust, Cary Parade, Torquay