Walking in Agatha's footsteps...

…I'm not running with my planned post today, as I have something far more interesting to talk about…

At the end of last month I was able to pay a visit to Greenway, in Devon.  This is the location of the fabulous house and gardens owned by Dame Agatha Christie.  If you follow this blog regularly you will undoubtedly have gathered that Agatha is one of my favourite writers.  You might also have picked up, if you've attended one of my occasional talks, that I first discovered Agatha's books at the age of about 11, and having read the first book went on to read all the rest.  So, I can honestly say that Agatha and her characters have been with me most of my life.  I still re-read her stories and, if pressed, I would have to admit that it was Agatha that got me into this crime-writing thing.

My trip to Greenway was done in a style that fully befitted the books and their author - check out the bus that my fellow travellers and I used to get there!  The house sits in the centre of beautifully planted gardens, which you can meander around.  I wanted to see the house first.

There's been a property of one sort or another on this land since the early 16th century.  Back then it was a Tudor mansion.  The house that sits here today was built in the 18th century and has since been expanded and added to over the years.  Agatha and her second husband, Max Mallowen, bought the place in 1938 to use as a holiday home.  During the 1939/45 conflict the house was taken over and used by the US Coastguard.  It became the family's again in the second half of the 1940's.

Greenway, gifted to the nation by the family, is now looked after by the National Trust and is kept in wonderful condition.  As I moved from room to room, it felt as though Agatha had just left, or was about to appear around the next corner or at the top of the stairs.  The chair and table in her spacious bedroom are there, just as she left them.  It was here that she would write when in Devon.  The library is full of her books and as I scanned the shelves I saw a complete set of what may have been arcs for her romantic suspense stories written under the name of Mary Westmacott.  I was itching to take those books off the shelf and look inside. And, if I'm totally honest, what I really wanted to do was to take all of those books and run off with them!  But I didn't.

As you move through the house there are small radios set on tables or shelves and you can hear Christie's voice as she talks about her life and her work.  It's as though you are listening to a current radio program on which she is being interviewed live.  It also makes you believe that if you walk into the next room, she will be there waiting for you.

I spent more than an hour meandering through the house, standing at the windows looking out at the garden, just as she must have done.  The rest of the afternoon was spent sauntering through the gardens, looking at the plants and flowers; the air scented with wild garlic here, the fabulous colours of the camellia borders there and the blue and yellow of the banks of bluebells and primroses. There's no wonder she believed Greenway to be 'the loveliest place in the world'…