Agatha Christie used her grandmother as a model
for Miss Marple, new tapes reveal
Lying undisturbed for more than 40 years, audio tapes
bearing the unmistakeable voice of Agatha Christie have
been discovered that show how she modelled Miss Marple
on her own grandmother.
By Stephen Adams, Arts Correspondent
Her grandson Mathew Prichard stumbled upon 27 of the
half-hour long tapes in a dusty cardboard box as he
cleaned out a storeroom in Greenway, the Georgian
property overlooking the Dart estuary in Devon that
Christie called "the loveliest place in the world".
The tapes, which nobody knew existed, are the raw
material on which part of her autobiography was based.
Working alone at her own unhurried pace, the ageing
Christie dictated the tapes on a Grundig Memorette
machine in the mid 1960s.
Her rich, authoritative voice offers a wealth of insights into
her life and how she developed her most beloved
characters.
Among them is her description of Jane Marple - and how
she partially based the genteel sleuth on her grandmother.
Although she insisted that Miss Marple was in no way "a
picture of my grandmother," she did admit the two shared
an important trait.
Speaking with a calm and deliberate authority, Christie
said of her grandmother: "Although a completely cheerful
person, she always expected the worst of anyone and
everything. And with almost frightening accuracy (she was)
usually proved right."
Her grandmother would say "I shouldn't be surprised if
so-and-so was going on," Christie recalled.
"And although with no grounds for these assertions, that
was exactly what was going on."
Christie did not intend Miss Marple to be a permanent
character, the tapes reveal.
But the sharp-witted spinster "insinuated herself so
quietly into my life that I think I hardly noticed her
arrival."
Rolling the 'r' to dramatic effect, she dictated: "I didn't
know then that she would become a rival to Hercule
Poirot."
Another extract from the tapes, revealed today by the
Christie Archives Trust to mark the 118th anniversary of
her birth, explain that she thought the fastidious Hercule
Poirot and the indomitable Miss Marple should never
meet.
Mr Prichard said it was "eerie" to hear her voice more than
30 years after her death.
Describing his feelings on listening to it, he said:
"Comforting isn't quite the word, but they are very
evocative."
He thought his grandmother's voice was able to
communicate far more than the written word alone.
Mr Prichard found the tapes months ago after deciding to
clean out a storeroom in the house, which the family has
handed to the National Trust.
His mother Rosalind Hicks was not the type to catalogue
her mother's possessions, he said, so when he found the
unlabelled tapes he had no idea what was on them.
He had assumed the tapes' contents were "irretrievable" as
the ancient Grundig recorder was broken, its defunct
batteries corroded.
But earlier this summer he decided to call a friend with a
knowledge of old tape machines. After raising an eyebrow,
the friend managed to get it working again.
Laura Thompson, author of the biography 'Agatha Christie:
An English Mystery', said the "extraordinary" find was of
great value because Christie rarely gave interviews.
"She did speak on the radio to the BBC a couple of times in
the 1950s but she did very, very little. It is a thrill to hear
her voice."