novelist Agatha Christie and her
husband, Colonel Archibald Christie
quarrelled at their home, Styles, in
Sunningdale, Berkshire.
Archie then left to see his mistress,
Nancy Neele, at Godalming. Later
that same evening, Agatha informed
her secretary by letter that she had
left for Yorkshire, and she sub-
sequently disappeared - her car was
found abandoned at Silent Pool, near Guildford.
Despite the ensuing public outcry and
a massive and costly manhunt, the
writer was only identified on Tuesday
December 14th, as a guest at the
Swan Hydropathic Hotel, 230 miles
away in Harrogate.
She had registered as Mrs. Teresa
Neele, and she never spoke of her disappearance ever again. Agatha was then diagnosed with fugue/amnesia,
but many contemporary commentators believed she had staged a publicity
stunt, and those missing eleven days remain a mystery worthy of one of her
books. The author's disappearance was dramatised in the 1979 film, Agatha
- Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Dalton depicted the Christies, and in the
Doctor Who story, The Unicorn and the Wasp (2008), Fenella Woolgar
portrayed the Queen of Crime. In the TV drama, A Life in Pictures (2004)
Agatha's psychiatrist concluded that her fugue state was genuine - an
opinion reinforced by Lucy Worsley in Destination Unknown (2022).
The Christies divorced in 1928, and Agatha married the archaeologist
Max Mallowan two years later.
No comments:
Post a Comment