When I read all the Agatha Christie novels back in 2024-25, because I started with the first of her novels, ‘The Mysterious Affair at Styles’, which was written in 1916, and published in the UK in 1921, I always associate her with the 1920s and 1930s. As you already know, whilst I was reading the complete novels, I was struck by loads of connections I could make with our lovely town, and some I’ve written about on here (see list below).
Naturally, I made of note of all these connections, and looking back at them now, I had to wonder to myself why I had made this particular link? Why on earth would Agatha Christie be mentioning this, which was surely something that would not yet have existed. Of course, when I looked at the publication date of ‘At Bertram’s Hotel’, I realised that 1965 would have been about right for this connection. In fact, this shows just how up-to-date Christie was, and how she kept up with what was going on in the country!
Back in 1949, the government had passed the Special Roads Act, which pretty much gave the go-ahead to create some new roads, an idea that had been floating around since before the Second World War, and some attempt had been made in 1923 by a company set up by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu. The first of these ‘special roads’ was the Preston bypass which was built in 1958, and which later became part of the M6.
On pages 3-4 of ‘At Bertram’s Hotel’, the reader is introduced to the hotel, and some of its guests:
“Inside, if this was the first time you had visited Bertram’s, you felt, almost with alarm, that you had re-entered a vanished world. Time had gone back. You were in Edwardian England once more.
… the big entrance lounge was the favourite place for the afternoon tea drinking. The elderly ladies enjoyed seeing who came in and out, recognising old friends, and commenting unfavourably on how these had aged. There were also American visitors fascinated by seeing the titled English really getting down to their traditional afternoon tea. For afternoon tea was quite a feature of Bertam’s ...
On this particular day, November the 17th, Lady Selina Hazy, sixty-five , up from Leicestershire, was eating delicious well-buttered muffins with all an elderly lady’s relish.”
Later, on pages 170-2, Christie, describing people in the hotel’s lounge, wrote:
“There were not many people in the lounge this evening. [The Chief-Inspector] saw Miss Marple sitting in a chair near the fire and Miss Marple saw him … It was quiet in the lounge tonight.
An ascetic looking middle-aged man was reading through a badly typed thesis, occasionally writing a comment in the margin in such small crabbed handwriting as to be almost illegible. Every time he did this, he smiled in vinegary satisfaction.
There were one or two married couples of long standing who had little need to talk to each other. Occasionally two or three people were gathered together in the name of the weather conditions, discussing anxiously how they or their families were going to get where they wanted to be.
‘ – I rang up and begged Susan not to come by car … it means the M1 and always so dangerous in fog …’
‘They say it’s clearer in the Midlands …’
Chief Inspector Davy noted them as he passed.”
So, if the book was published in 1965, then Christie must have been writing about the M1 in the Midlands some time earlier! How absolutely abreast of current affairs was Christie?!
Mr lynneaboutloughborough recently did a park run on Greenham Common: in his sharing of this activity, he’s been interested to note that some people look blankly at him, and wonder why he chose to run there, while others gasp in amazement and ask what it’s like there since the women who arrived there to protest about nuclear weapons in 1981 had moved out about 19 years later?
The first part of the M1 opened in 1958, but, of course, detailed plans were made much earlier and certainly shared in 1956. There was an outcry in our area, as the original plan for the route was to take it through the ancient Charnwood Forest. A petition to stop this gathered 32,000 signatures! A revised route was devised, and the M1 through Leicestershire from Leicester Forest East, going in a northerly direction, and therefore passing Loughborough, opened in 1965. Apparently, incorporated in the hardcore was building material from Garendon Hall, which had been demolished in June 1964.
Since that time,
Charnwood Forest has become an ‘aspiring UNESCO global geopark’ and has received
Heritage Lottery Funding to help tell the story of Charnwood Forest, and look
after it for future generations. There have also been many changes to the
layout of the M1, with new lanes added, and new junctions, installed, linking
more places. And the site of Garendon Hall is now being developed for housing.
What more can I say?
The Outwoods, part of Charnwood Forest
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| Part of Garendon Park |
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Previous Agatha Christie connections posts
Snowcrete - https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/03/christie-connections-snowcrete.html
Christie and Cook - https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/08/christie-and-cook.html
Paul Pry - https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2025/03/christie-connections-paul-pry.html (part of the A-Z Art Deco Challenge 2025)
Pirates in the Market Place - https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2026/06/spotlight-on-pirates-in-market-place.html
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Posted by lynneaboutloughborough
With apologies for
typos which are all mine!
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Dyer, Lynne (2026). Agatha Christie Connections. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2026/06/agatha-christie-connections.html [Accessed 25 June 2026]
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