Mark Aldridge

Hello, welcome to WesmerPod, the Christie Time podcast about Agatha Christie's secret identity.

I'm Mark Aldridge.

I research and write about Agatha Christie a lot, including for my books, Agatha Christie's Marble, Agatha Christie's Poirot, and forthcoming, The Swinging Christie's Book, which you can pre-order now, which I wrote with...

funny isn't it yeah it's like too blustery to record outside without ruining our lovely listeners ears but beautiful sunshine as well so we're sort of looking out onto the sun yes uh and the and the quite choppy green sea yes very green we've just been at the spring gathering the festival the international act of christy festival holds i guess each april they don't have the last two yeah but if you haven't got tickets yet

Oh, definitely.

Yeah, yeah.

We signed the contract last summer, I think.

Well, it's the last secret Mary Westmacott, but we will go into that in more detail.

In The Rose and the Yew Tree, our narrator, Hugh Norries, is recuperating in the Cornish town of St.

Lou after a serious car accident.

Here lives the charismatic but complicated Major John Gabriel, a parliamentary candidate who is popular with locals, especially women.

Is John Gabriel what he appears to be?

Oh my goodness, I'm so out of era.

Do you know I'm quite interested in this immediately post-war era because when I did my PhD about early TV, I was like, my next thing might well be a book about those few years of TV just after the Second World War.

Which I never did.

No.

But Mark Gatiss is of the same mind.

Still a pretty good hit rate.

This is not the sort of rationing we would immediately think of when we think about your tiny cube of butter you're allowed or whatever.

I did.