A walk in Agatha land

Agatha Christie was inspired by her summer home in South Devon. KEVIN PILLEYvisits some of her favourite haunts

THE Fairmilepleasure cruiser was full. And there was no mystery why. The weather along the River Dart was perfect and all on board shared one passion – Murder, Most Foul!

The National Trust in Britain has re-opened Dame Agatha Christie's waterfront holiday home in Galmpton, Devon. With her second husband, the archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, Christie lived at Greenwayevery summer from 1938 to her death in 1976. On view are a gardening hat and her collections of shell paintings and Tunbridge ware.

South Devon is Agatha Christie land and, to commemorate its favourite daughter, every September (this year it’s 12th-19th) the “English Riviera” tourist board stages a festival, whose programme includes heritage bus tours, “whodunnit” evenings, talks, walks, tea dances and river cruises to her summer house. Her home town of Torquay has an “Agatha Christie Mile”.

“She got Miss Marple and Poirot wrong,” Blue Badge Christie guide, Joan Nott informed me as we set off on the AC Mile.

"Both would have been well over 100 and still solving crimes and unravelling mysteries. Miss Marple was created in Murder at the Vicaragein 1930 and solved her last case in 1976 in Sleeping Murder."

Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in 1890 in Ashfield, Barton Road, Torquay. The Victorian mansion, whose greenhouse Christie describes in Postern of Fate, was demolished in 1962. Nothing remains now but a boundary wall. And a plaque.

Christie said she enjoyed “a high standard of domestic comfort”. She led a privileged childhood of country house dances and society balls held at places such as Oldway Mansion, originally built for Isaac Singer of the sewing machine fame.

“It was a life of leisure – the one really valuable thing in life – parlourmaids and whalebone corsets . . .” says Nott, pausing before the punch-line, “ . . . giving red sore places”.

Christie’s father, Frederick Miller, was an American of independent means kept by his grandparents. He died when she was 11. Her mother, Clara, was English and aristocratic.

Nott knows Christie inside out. “Agatha learned to read at three. Her first published piece was a poem about electric trams. Agatha met Lt Archie Christie of the Royal Flying Corps at a ball at Ugbrooke House near Exeter.”

He asked for a divorce after Christie’s mother’s death in 1926, which caused her infamous, 11-day disappearance. She was found in Harrogate, Yorkshire.

Nott walks me down the seafront and fills me in further.

Christie's first novel, The Mysterious Affair At Styles, was published in 1920. She received £26 for it. Styles introduced Poirot whose "little grey cells" were taxed in a further 33 books.

I ask about Miss Marple.

“The name came from Marple Hall in Cheshire. The character was modelled on her grandmother. Poirot was inspired by a Belgian refugee.”

We continue to promenade.

Torquay Museum has a permanent Christie exhibition – the only one of its kind in the world. Agatha worked in the Town Hall when it was a Red Cross Hospital. The museum has her service certificate.

Nott’s eyebrows rise melodramatically. “In the dispensary she learned about poisons and started writing, encouraged by her sister Madge.”

Exhibited in the museum are first editions and a pair of shoes which belonged to actress Joan Hickson, who played Miss Marple in the TV series. On the “Christie Mile” the trivia comes thick and fast. She collected fluffy monkeys. Poirot appeared on a Nicaraguan postage stamp celebrating the centenary of Interpol. Agatha once held a poodle party to which guests came dressed as dogs.

We stop for tea in the Imperial Hotel, whose terrace is featured in The Body In The Library. Lily Langtry met Edward VII here. The parents of Poirot actor David Suchet owned a top floor flat there.

Nott points over the bay. “The Grand Hotel is where Agatha had her one-night honeymoon after marrying Archie in 1914.”

Christie explored Devon and the South Hams countryside in her Morris Cowley. Fifteen of her books are either set in Devon or have specific connections with the county. From Burgh Island (And Then There Were None) to the Dartmoor setting of The Sittaford Mystery.

You can see her baptism certificate at All Saint's church. Churston station was Nassecombe in Dead Man's Folly. Kents Cavern appeared as Hempsley Cavern in The Man In The Brown Suit.

Devon's creeks and coves, such as Elberry in Paignton, play starring roles in her books. Miss Marple's home of St Mary Mead is a composite Devon village. Dartmouth's Royal Castle appears as the Royal George in Ordeal by Innocence. Christie finished The Mysterious Affair at Stylesin the Moorland Hotel at Haytor on Dartmoor.

Lady Mallowan is buried in Cholsey, Oxfordshire, near her last home in Wallingford, but Devon was where her heart lay and is where her bust now stands proud.

The bronze statue has pride of place on Torquay’s Cary Green. The Christie family did not want their “Aggie” honoured anywhere but on the “English Riviera”.

“Agatha’s bust is a landmark,” smiles Joan Nott as we complete the Mile. We are proud of it.”

englishriviera.co.uk