J o h n e s c o t t agatha Christie

A poster for the film Murder on the Orient Express
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Л youn g arch aeologist
Archaeology was something that interested Agatha 
very much, and Leonard Woolley, the archaeologist, and 
his wife were working at Ur.
Katherine Woolley was very happy to meet Agatha.
‘I love your books!’ she told Agatha. T ve just finished 
reading l he Murder o f Roger Ackroyd. It was wonderful!’
Agatha became the Woolleys’ special visitor. She loved 
Ur, and she loved watching the archaeologists. It was slow, 
tiring work, and they had to dig very carefully. Sometimes 
they found nothing for hours, and sometimes they found 
old pots or knives. It was always exciting when one of the 
workers found something that was thousands of years old.
‘You must come back again another year,’ Katherine 
Woolley said.
So Agatha did. She went out in March 1930, the week 
before the Woolleys planned to come back to England. 
The plan was that Agatha could travel back with them 
through Syria and Greece.
A young archaeologist called M ax Mallowan was 
working with the Woolleys. He was twenty-five years 
old, and a quiet young man.
‘I’ve told M ax to show you Nejef and Kerbala,’ 
Katherine Woolley told Agatha. ‘Nejef is the holy city 
of the dead, and Kerbala has a wonderful mosque. 
When we leave here and go to Baghdad, he’ ll take you 
there. You can see Nippur on the way.’
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Agatha Christie, Woman o f Mystery
‘Oh, but doesn’t M ax want to go to Baghdad with 
you?’ said Agatha. ‘He will have friends to see there 
before he goes home to England.’
‘Oh no,’ said Katherine. ‘M ax will be pleased to take 
you.’
The young archaeologist was pleased to take Agatha. 
He liked her immediately, and Agatha liked him. They 
talked and laughed and enjoyed every minute of their 
time together.
They met the Woolleys in Baghdad, and the four of 
them travelled to Greece together. But when they got to 
their hotel in Athens, there were seven telegrams waiting 
for Agatha. They all said the same thing. Rosalind was 
ill. Agatha must come home quickly.
‘I’ll go with you, A gatha,’ said M ax.
‘Oh, thank you, M a x ,’ said Agatha. ‘But haven’t you 
got plans to— ?’
‘I’ve changed my plans,’ said M ax, quietly. ‘I’m 
coming with you, A gatha.’
So they travelled home together. When they arrived, 
they found that Rosalind was much better, so that was 
one happy ending. Soon, there was another.
Agatha was fourteen years older than M ax, but during 
the journey home M ax decided to ask her an important 
question. And when they were back in England, he 
asked Agatha to marry him.
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Л young archaeologist
They were married on the 11th of September, 1930, in 
Edinburgh, in Scotland.
к* 
к Г
к Г
1930 was also the year when A gatha’s other famous 
detective first appeared - in The Murder at the Vicarage. 
Her name was Miss Jane Marple - a little old woman 
who lived in the quiet English village of St Mary Mead.
M ax and Agatha at their homes in later years
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Agatha Christie, Woman o f Mystery
Miss Marple looked like somebody’s grandmother, a 
nice kind woman who enjoyed cooking and gardening. 
But she also had very good eyes and ears. She saw, heard, 
and remembered everything - names, faces, the times 
of trains and buses, the colour of a shirt, the sound of 
a door shutting. And she always found out the name of 
the murderer before the police did.
Readers loved the Miss Marple stories, and she was 
soon as popular as Hercule Poirot. But was she a real 
person? Where did the idea for the character come from?
‘Where? I can never remember,’ Agatha always said.