In October of 1914, just a few weeks after her twenty-fourth birthday, Agatha Miller signed up to be a volunteer with the British Red Cross. War in Europe had been declared at the tail end of July, with England joining the fight within days. Agatha’s fiancé, Archie, was deployed in August and already large numbers of injured soldiers were returning to England for care. No doubt, Agatha’s desire to serve was a patriotic as well as a personal response.
Agatha was living at that time with her mother and grandmother in Torquay. Known as the English Riviera because of its mild climate (at least in comparison with the rest of England!) Torquay was particularly prized for convalescence. The town hall was converted into a secondary hospital and received its first wave of patients before the end of October. Some wonderful photos from 1915, available online, show how the hospital looked during a visit by King George and Queen Mary.
The Voluntary Aid Detachment program had been in operation for a few years, but the reality of war prompted a cooperative effort with the British Red Cross. The British Red Cross Museum & Archives website provides a wealth of fascinating history, including Agatha Christie’s service card which records 3,400 volunteer hours.
Agatha’s earliest service was in the Torquay Town Hall Hospital as a nurse trainee. She talks a little about her experiences there in her autobiography, recalling the smell of blood and ether, and how she discarded amputated limbs in the furnace. Apparently, for all her nearly Victorian innocence and upbringing, she somehow dealt with these horrific experiences with calm practicality. One suspects, however, that PTSD may have affected many V.A.D.s as well as soldiers.
Cynthia Murdoch in The Mysterious Affair at Styles and Tuppence Cowley from The Secret Adversary both served with the V.A.D. during the War. Tuppence worked in a London hospital but as a parlor maid rather than as a nurse. This was common for volunteers who had no previous experience in hospitals. Also, qualified nurses were not about to give way to these untrained upstarts. As the war continued, however, many of the volunteer women proved their merit and provided excellent service alongside the professional nurses.
Cynthia’s experience is more like that of Agatha Christie since she worked in the pharmacy of a hospital rather than as a nurse or maid. According to the story, Agatha was sent home for some weeks in 1916 while recovering from influenza, which was rampant during those years. By the time she returned to the Town Hall Hospital, a new dispensary was in operation. One of her friends was already working there and the hours for dispensers were shorter than those for nurses, so Agatha decided to make a change.
Agatha was required to study medicines and take exams before becoming a dispenser, which she did in 1917. Her practical exam results, as recorded with the Society of Apothecaries, were only average and she actually preferred nursing to pharmacy work, but even so, Agatha completed her service with the Red Cross as a dispenser.
It was during the days that Agatha was training with a local pharmacist that she first started writing The Mysterious Affair at Styles. You can’t help but wonder how much of Cynthia and her co-worker Nibs was based on her personal experience at the Town Hall Hospital.
Much has been written about Agatha’s knowledge of poisons and their appearances in her novels. Certainly, no one would choose world war, a fiancé in danger, and soul-sapping volunteer hours to gain writing experience, but it gave Agatha a rich background from which to draw. Mix-ups or overdoses of prescriptions often show up in her books, all with a stamp of authenticity that can only be had through an actual understanding of how drugs work.
Fortunately for us, as well as for her friends and family, Agatha used that understanding to write about murders rather than commit them!
Photo: VAD nurses at Gledlow Hall in 1915, Public Domain