50 years on after her death in Oxfordshire

Half a century after her death, Agatha Christie still holds a firm grip on the hearts of readers all over the world.

But beyond the enigmatic characters of her famous mystery crime novels, her own personality is also part of the her appeal, as she preferred to stay away from the limelight and – surprisingly – enjoyed surfing as a hobby.

On the 50th anniversary of Dame Agatha’s death, the BBC revisits her life and her resting place in Oxfordshire.

Agatha Christie died, aged 85, on 12 January 1976. According with her wishes, she was buried in the churchyard of St Mary’s in Cholsey, which is close to her home in Winterbrook – a hamlet bordering Wallingford.

“As a village, Cholsey will be marking that by putting a small tribute to her,” said Judy Dewey, curator of Wallingford Museum.

She said the volunteer-run museum would also be giving a tribute to her.

“When you go to the grave in Cholsey, there are often little tributes there – people leave books, little gifts,” Dewey said.

“It’s very important that she’s remembered because 50 years on and people all over the world are reading her books.”

Her achievements were also noted in Guinness World Records as “the world’s best-selling fiction writer”, with 78 crime novels that have sold an estimated 2 billion copies in 44 languages.

Christie was born in Torquay in 1890 and wrote masterpieces of crime fiction including Murder on the Orient Express, And Then There Were None and Death on the Nile, penning the detective characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

Aside from her novels, she also wrote the longest-running play in world theatre history, The Mousetrap.

When she was asked by the BBC in 1957 why it was so loved by the audiences, Christie simply said: “Your guess is as good as mine”.

Dewey said she would “never willingly do an interview about anything”.

Her grandson Mathew Prichard attributed it to “an unpleasant incident” early in her life, which had “put her off being public at all”.

But she enjoyed being among actors, in whose company she said she always felt “very happy and at home”.

She was president of Wallingford theatre group Sinodun Players for 25 years.

The group said their first production of the year was a play in Christie’s honour.

Away from writing, Christie travelled the world, often accompanying her second husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan, on archaeological expeditions.

But one surprising fact about her may be that she was a surfer.

The Museum of British Surfing in Braunton, Devon, states on its website that she and her first husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, had taken up bellyboarding in South Africa.

Chair of trustees Kevin Cook described her as a pioneer of women surfing in the early 1920s.

“To be confronted with a lady in her early 30s who was at the home of surfing in Hawaii, actually getting to grips with one of the most fulfilling and thrill-giving sports there is, and actually making a good fist of it, is amazing,” he said.

“It shows that she was strong, capable and I would describe her as feisty”.

Cook said a picture of the author standing in front of a surfboard at Waikiki Beach was among the museum’s “most prized” possessions.

“That immediately captures anyone’s attention,” he said.

“I don’t think anyone before they come in through the door of the museum would have associated her with surfing.”

Wallingford Museum already displays the author’s personal letters.

For its reopening in March, it is preparing a new exhibition on “Wallingford in the latter years”, when Christie and Max Mallowan lived there from the 1950s through to the 1970s.

“They spent a lot more time here in their older age than they did before,” Dewey said.

“They shopped here, it was the town they knew and we’re reflecting on what Agatha Christie would have known as Wallingford, what was home to them.”

In front of the museum, readers continue to be drawn to the life-sized bronze statue of the author unveiled in 2023, as she sits on a bench overlooking the Kinecroft, as if for inspiration.