Does the Agatha Christie Society UK still exist?

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  • Dr.SheppardDr.Sheppard Oxford, UK
    @shana, the Christie Chronicle was always a paper magazine, so they are not available on-line. I would certainly be prepared to scan them and make some of them available if there was an interest, excluding the 'items for sale' or 'pen-pal' items.
  • shanashana Paramaribo, Suriname
    @Dr.Sheppard the choice of words in your answer to my question is interesting. "always a paper magazine" : doesn't have any relevance because any content, on paper or not, can always be given access to online. Scanning it in,as you yourself suggested, would be the start of it. Can't this website provide a link to those (future) scans or put something up like an "Archive"?
     And Doctor why do you always stop at the question "if there was an interest"?? It's time to move on to answering that question, that is, if this exchange we are having serves any purpose at all.
    Apart from that,  I would say, for the sake of preserving anything and/or everything that the former AC Society produced on the person it was all about and this website still IS ; is reason enough to make soft copies of and furthermore give her fans access to, whatever the amount of interest may be. Besides, only when one knows that something exists , can it generate " an interest" don"t you think?
    And Dr. Sheppard does not have to do all that work himself, he can always ask those in charge of this website and or those in charge of AC"s estate or whatever to consider this option very seriously.

    So now that I know about it and am interested, can you make that "Crooked House" article available to me? Either in this forum or via E-mail?
  • Dr.SheppardDr.Sheppard Oxford, UK
    edited April 2016
    http://drjamessheppard.blogspot.co.uk/

    @shana As requested, Cooked house. It's on my Blog, tried a number of other methods with little success. 
  • shanashana Paramaribo, Suriname
    Hmmm, was nice to read what AC herself thought about her writing Crooked House. Though it was a little on the short side, this article, it left me with an appetite for more. You see @ Dr. Sheppard, my copy of the novel doesn't have the introduction this piece was part of originally. Another reason for putting all this material of the Society on line. Hope @Tuppence is taking all this with her to the next Boardmeeting of ACL.
  • Susans2Susans2 east Sussex
    Ok just love ac. I have all her books some of them 3 times. I also have 2 books both are valued at £100 each. One is a first edition and the other is with all her changes or the spelling mistakes corrections 
  • CarterCarter West Sussex UK
    edited August 2016
    It would be superb if The Agatha Christie Society could be revived, or failing that if the Christie Chronicle magazine could be republished either hard copy/online or both. Incidentally, The Dorothy L Sayers Society (founded in 1976) is still going strong. They hold meetings and publish a magazine (both hard copy and email pdf for members):

    https://www.sayers.org.uk/
  • @Carter Thank you for the pointer to The Dorothy L Sayers Society  https://www.sayers.org.uk/ I found the design and layout very disappointing. There may be a different view for members, (which is locked for non-members), but the blue background and use of Verdana font is dated. I wonder what the fourteen committee members do - I'd better stop there.
    The Christie Chronical was a quarterly magazine, published by the AC Society, with articles from the members for the members; at the time is was only available in hard copy, but these days it would an electronic PDF, and should be free to members. As any name or link to Agatha Christie is protected by strict Copywrite, a revival of the Chronical would have to be approved by AC Ltd. It may sound strange, but I will be meeting with Mathew Prichard next month, if both of us have time I will bring up the topic of resurrecting the Chronical.
  • CarterCarter West Sussex UK
    I agree Dr.Sheppard, the DLS Society could certainly do with a new website, and thanks for the update - fingers crossed and here's hoping for the possible resurrection of the Christie Chronicle.
  • Dr.Sheppard, who would write articles for The Christie Chronicle were it to be revived? I don't see many articles being written for this website, and so AC Limited would need to find people interested in doing this, and at the moment, they seem to be more focused on the film and tv adaptations and the modern copy cat Poirot novels by Sophie Hannah. That said, the chronicle could be a repository for the academic papers which are delivered at the periodic Exeter University forums the existence of  which you have brought to our attention, albeit these are not broadly publicized on this website. GKC Fan has written articles on Christie, so perhaps AC Limited will ask him to edit it. As you said, it took full time secretaries, etc, to run it in the old days, so it would be a major undertaking, but clearly fans would like it to be revived.




  • @Griselda, I am fairly confident that I could find a few fans that would be delighted to contribute to the Chronical (or start it off). There are a lot 'out there' that do not use this website, but love to share their thoughts and views via the web. But if I was involved it would be a question of asking individuals to review and provide their thoughts on the 'Topic of the Quarter'. What's on the contents page would be open to suggestions, but I hope the production would be for the community and a involve a wide audience, wherever they are across the globe.
  • CarterCarter West Sussex UK
    @Carter Thank you for the pointer to The Dorothy L Sayers Society  https://www.sayers.org.uk/ I found the design and layout very disappointing. There may be a different view for members, (which is locked for non-members), but the blue background and use of Verdana font is dated. I wonder what the fourteen committee members do - I'd better stop there.
    The Christie Chronical was a quarterly magazine, published by the AC Society, with articles from the members for the members; at the time is was only available in hard copy, but these days it would an electronic PDF, and should be free to members. As any name or link to Agatha Christie is protected by strict Copywrite, a revival of the Chronical would have to be approved by AC Ltd. It may sound strange, but I will be meeting with Mathew Prichard next month, if both of us have time I will bring up the topic of resurrecting the Chronical.



    Dr.Sheppard, what is your opinion of the design and layout of the Margery Allingham Society (est. 1988) website?

    http://www.margeryallingham.org.uk/
  • @Griselda, I am fairly confident that I could find a few fans that would be delighted to contribute to the Chronical (or start it off). There are a lot 'out there' that do not use this website, but love to share their thoughts and views via the web. But if I was involved it would be a question of asking individuals to review and provide their thoughts on the 'Topic of the Quarter'. What's on the contents page would be open to suggestions, but I hope the production would be for the community and a involve a wide audience, wherever they are across the globe.
    I wouldn't mind contributing to The Christie Chronicle. I love writing in-depth articles and I wouldn't mind writing some based on Agatha Christie's books, her characters, plots, etc. 
  • What other websites are they using - is it The Agatha Project, or something else? Have the fans who used to post on this website gone to other sites, d'you know? The chronicle could obviously be part of this website too - clearly they didn't have websites when it was going. I think that with other writer fan groups people will write articles on all sort of dimensions: servants in the novels; the weather; the houses: almost anything. 
  • Dr.SheppardDr.Sheppard Oxford, UK
    edited August 2016
    @ChristieFanForLife, If anything comes of the Chronicle we know where to find you - enthusiasm is the important thing.
  • By the way, guys, I've done some google checking and it is spelt chronicle, and not chronical. We might as well try to maintain consistency between us.
  • Dr.SheppardDr.Sheppard Oxford, UK
    edited August 2016
    @Griselda. Not sure about The Agatha Project; only five of Christie books covered. It lists many books read and discarded, not related to AC.
    A number of fans that I speak to, once regularly visited this website, but do not visit anymore - if something I think of interest appears here, I pass it on. Like all of us, they have their favourite website and post there, I do not have the list but there are a number of niche sites.
    As for the Chronicle being part of this website, I'm not convinced this website has a large enough audience, it should be standalone.
    I would add my own thoughts on contents for the Chronicle and that is it should only review and comment on the works of Christie, not the films, or adaptations, however, it should promote 'external' activities as that would be something the fans would be interested in. (What do I know!)
  • Griselda said:
    By the way, guys, I've done some google checking and it is spelt chronicle, and not chronical. We might as well try to maintain consistency between us.
         Sorry my fault, typing and spell check.
  • No worries!
    That font and motif from the original Chronicle is very effective, isn't it? I think the ITV team were right in identifying that audiences respond passionately to the style and elegance of the times about which Christie wrote, as well as to the plot lines. I always so enjoy the measured way in which characters speak and behave even in the challenged times of the wartime, and post-war era (The Crooked House, Taken at the Flood and The Moving Finger, for instance). I am sure that the new BBC dramas will communicate that style also, as the BBC do period dramas really well.
  • Well @Griselda, BBC took part in the new T&T Partners In Crime series and that wasn't good at all in my opinion. I much prefered the ones from the 80's. The BBC period dramas used to be really good but it's like now they're so focused on modernizing for a new audience. 
  • They set T and T Partners in Crime in the 1950s, and captured the style and attitudes of that time, I feel.

    This issue of modernizing is going to be a big theme. I think that it is seen as the way to capture new and younger audiences. I can't remember exactly where I saw the articles, but having decided to google Agatha Christie films for screen and tv, I came across and read a number, and all concerned in the development of new adaptations wanted to reach new audiences. They want, it appears, to go beyond preaching to the converted. I suspect that those of us on this forum who are, to a great extent, purists, are not in the ascendancy in terms of what is in vogue. Things could come full circle, and in ten years time, the consensus might become more welcoming of straight literal translations from the novel. For now I think we must expect modernisation.

    In fairness, I am sure it has been commented on this site that even decades ago in Christie's lifetime, questions were asked about just how easily her novels translated to the screen. In my opinion, the dialogue does very well on the screen, and often it is lifted directly from the book. I think the problem directors have is with characterisation and how to style and present characters when they are not speaking: what do they do, how do they make an entrance, how do they interact with others. How do their suspicions present themselves. They might do better to take  a narrator, and show the characters through their eyes and channel all of their personal preconceptions about the characters: for instance Ariadne Oliver - show the characters as she would have seen them.

     The big issue is with mysteries, that we are not supposed to know what Poirot or Miss Marple are thinking until the end when they tell us what they thought all along. They have to be sphinx- like. The directors either imagine what personalities the audience will be pre-figuring and base the characters on modern stereotypes, or they send them up, making them ridiculous parodies of upper class twits, to say, look, we know these characters are absurd and old-fashionedly stuck up, but we are playing this tongue in cheek and giving you a farce as well as a brain-teaser. I'd say this latter interpretation is true of the latest ITV Marples, Sleeping Murder, (eg the dance troupe) Pricking of My Thumbs (the drunk Tuppence and absent Tommy) The Sittaford Mystery (the girl in the bath flirting with the journalist and her over-the-top fiance). 

    None of us are really sure how much of Christie the directors have read. We often read in the newspapers that they didn't read any of the novels until asked to make an adaptation. They are probably cherry-picking the books for what they think are the juicy bits, and maybe don't have an admiration for the integrity of the complete work.
  • @Griselda, modernization is not all bad but it's the kind of modernization that's being done. What I see are gratuitous sexual scenes, F-bombs thrown at times, and a homosexual/lesbian angle added to the character(s) which were never there in that particular book they were filming at the time. These things doesn't add anything to the story or to Agatha Christie's body of work and legacy. If people want to see these things, those kind of scenes that I specified, they're done much better elsewhere. When it comes to reaching a younger and new audience, it sounds like an insult to those viewers because essentially these screenwriters and directors are saying "if we put these kinds of scenes in, that will attract their eye. That's the only way they will ever be attracted to Agatha Christie's stories." It's an insult to the newer, younger generation and for Agatha Christie. It seems like in order to attract a new audience they have to have flashy lights, figuratively speaking, rather than substance. A couple of weeks ago I watched with Julia McKenzie in A Pocketful of Rye, and the short sexual scenes that I saw in it made me roll my eyes because it didn't add anything to the story --it made me ask "what was the point of that? was it necessary? -- and it seemed more like the director just wanted to throw in a couple of sexual scenes and insert them willy-nilly. No point. No purpose. The transition of scenes were sloppy and the film was a mess. The only good part at the end of the movie was the end when Miss Marple discovers Gladys' letter and a photo of Albert who is actually Lance Fortescue. It was filmed very well and it was the way the book ended and I wish that scene was in the Joan Hickson version. But I take Hickson's version any day over the McKenzie one. The Hickson one had more substance while the McKenzie one included unnecessary scenes, horrible transition, bad camera angles and the characters just didn't stand out to me. A lot of them came across as cartoonish and silly. And in Sleeping Murder, this Funnybones business just didn't make sense to me and I don't see why they dramatically changed Agatha Christie's plot which was more sinister and again the transitioning of scenes were just done pretty sloppily. When Gwenda hears that line from the Duchess of Malfi in the Hickson version, you hear the sinister music, you hear that line from the play done in a creepy and eerie tone, and Gwenda's scream pierces right in that theatre. That scene was perfectly filmed and choreographed whereas with Geraldine McEwan, that scene was rushed and was a mixture between corny and an attempt to be funny . . . .and again I rolled my eyes. I don't even think they even used that line "Cover her face, mine eyes dazzle, she died young" at all! That line alone is what makes Sleeping Murder so memorable. Even Agatha Christie was going to call the book "Cover Her Face". But she couldn't because there was another mystery out by that name at the time by P.D. James so she changed it to the title we now know. But the point is if you're going to make a film and include more modernization (and again I say it's the "kind" that's being done) it should be done in a way that doesn't include certain scenes just for the heck of it and that the films should be well made. 
  • If there is a great earlier film, it doubly exposes the faults of the remake. Such an affecting first movie with Joan Hickson. How did the actors understand their characters so well in the 80s, or whenever, and so lose all connection with the former age by the new millennium? We are just going to have to see what these next offerings are like. It would be interesting to know if they try out ideas on younger production assistants and say "Does this work" "Would this be good?" "Do you feel this character?" They must do something to try to gauge what audiences are going to like. The critics are important too. Odd that we've been given no further details about Murder on the Orient Express. I thought we were supposed to be kept up to date on developments and interesting news......
  • maxmax Norfolk
    I would love to be part of the Agatha Christie group
  • Dr.SheppardDr.Sheppard Oxford, UK
    Hi @max, It's good to know that individuals are still interested in being part of the Agatha Christie Society. Having been one of the people that was asked to run it when Chorion decided that this website was the way they wanted to go, I'm sorry to say that it does not run with a quarterly magazine or other type of communication anymore. There are thirty-two of us from all round the globe, that have a closed Facebook group that keep in close contact and talk Agatha Christie items. I have asked interested fans what they would like to see in it, if the Christie Chronicle was still being published. I would be interested in your thoughts if you want to share them. 
  • imetaxiaimetaxia Pawtucket, RI USA
    I would love a revival in any form including e-magazine on line. I would like to know more about her life and personal history, and perhaps any connections of that life to any of her writings, be it books, short stories, etc.  I would also like to know more about her mysterious disappearance and subsequent resurface, and all that was involved.  I would also like to know what happened to her first husband after he divorced Agatha and married his secretary.  Were they happy together?  Did they get divorced?  Did he ever regret what he did?  And of course, I would like to know and learn more about everything Christie! 
    Thank you,
    Imetaxia
  • edited June 2018
    I can answer one or two questions.

    "Murder in Mesopotamia" is based on a real experience - two AC visits to the diggings at Ur. Several characters are based on real people - the Leidners are based on Leonard and Katherine Woolley, the head of the archeological expedition and his wife, Father Lavigny is based on a Priest who worked at the dig and David Emmott is based on Max Mallowan, who became her second husband.

    Agatha Christie's first husband married his golf partner, not his secretary. Her second husband married his secretary after Agatha Christie's death. 

    Again, I warmly recommend her autobiography, as well as her additional autobiographical book - "Come tell me how you live". 

    I just went back to the autobiography to look for the trip to Ur, and found another biographical detail she used in one of her books - she traveled by the Orient Express, and one of her fellow passengers - a Turkish woman - exchanged details about their children - Agatha Christie was embarrassed to admit that she only had one daughter, while the Turkish woman had had 13 deliveries, several of the children dying. AC uses this incident towards the end of "Cat among the Pigeons", when Julia Upjohn's mother is traveling in Turkey, the bus gets stuck and the passengers wait by the road, She gets into a similar discussion with a Turkish woman, who also tells of many pregnancies and several miscarriages - but unlike AC, Mrs. Upjohn actually perjures herself and adds several imaginary sons to her single daughter. 
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