Happy Agatha Christie Day!
As any crime fiction fan will know, Agatha Christie is still the Queen of Crime Fiction. Her books have been translated in many languages, her stories and mysteries as popular today as they ever were. Many have been made into films and TV dramas. The phrase “Timeless classics” has been used to describe her books but it’s the mystery of Agatha Christie herself that is perhaps one of the most enduring and endearing mysteries there ever was…
The Old Swan Hotel Harrogate
Back in 1926, she disappeared herself for 11 days and what followed was a media furore of its day. The police search was intense and thorough. She was found hiding out at the Old Swan hotel in Harrogate and the discovery caused just as much talk and rumour as one of her very own mysteries. Not surprisingly, the Old Swan proudly announces and marks this criminally fascinating event with a framed newspaper of the news and a plaque. This is of course the hotel where every year the crime festival of all crime festivals is held – Theakstons Crime Festival. Agatha Christie would be most proud!
Agatha Christie newspaper headline at Old Swan Harrogate (c) TheBookTrail
From the newspaper: Agatha Christie
Missing for eleven days, Mrs Agatha Christie , the novelist, of whom this is one of the latest photographs, was found yesterday at Harrogate. Following a police investigation her husband, Colonel Christie,traveled earlier in the day to the Yorkshire resort from Sunningdale from which Mrs Christie disappeared on the evening of Friday, December 3. Today a search of the Surrey Down over an area of 60 square miles was to have been made and divers were to have descended pols and wells near Newlands Corner where the novelists car was found abandoned the day after she left home
Inset:
Mrs Christi with her little daughter Rosalind
First picture in column:
Colonel Archibald Christie who throughout the long suspense resolutely eclined to believe that his wife was dead “I want to believe she is alive,” he said
Second picture in column:
A diver making ready for the renewed search which was to have been made today for the novelist in pools off the Surrey Downs – plans which are, of course, now cancelled.
Third picture in column:
The lonely hut near Newlands Corner, in which police searching for Mrs Christie, discovered a torn-up postcard and a fur coat. The hut was subsequently placed under police guard.
Next to this is the proud plaque marking the event in the way Agatha Christie herself would have no doubt approved of:
Agatha Christie plaque at Old Swan Harrogate (c) TheBookTrail
Elsewhere in the hotel, in a special bedroom where she stayed there is another reminder of her presence: (This photo may appear wonky but the books in the image are all hard backs and deceptively heavy!)
Agatha Christie at Old Swan Harrogate (c) TheBookTrail
Also in the hotel is this “Christie life framed”
Agatha Christie Old Swan Harrogate (c) TheBookTrail
Try and stay in the Old Swan Hotel and take an Agatha novel with you -look around the room when you do, see who is there around you, maybe hiding in plain sight and wonder just which one of the people you can see is capable of something bad – hear every creak and groan of the floorboards and imagine what could be buried underneath them – If there is a storm outside, make sure you’re not in the hotel yourself and that you’re the last one standing…
