AS ONE of the bestselling authors of all time, Agatha Christie was not known for getting writer’s block.

But detective work by Wallingford residents has revealed the world famous crime writer sometimes suffered from constipation and bought laxatives from a chemist in the town as a cure.

According to people who knew her, she also wore corsets, and would allow some residents to use the squash court at her home near the town.

The author of Miss Marple and Poirot detective stories lived at Winterbrook House, in Cholsey, from 1934 until her death in 1976, and at the time was married to second husband Max Mallowan.

In 2011, Wallingford Museum, in High Street, staged an exhibition featuring 15 letters by the author, including 13 she wrote as president of the town’s Sinodun Players drama group.

Now, the museum has updated its exhibition to include written submissions from people who knew Agatha Christie when she lived in Wallingford.

Curator Judy Dewey said: “We asked people in the town who knew Agatha Christie to share their memories of her for our new exhibition and some fascinating details have already emerged, but we would still like to hear more.

“From what we have been told, Agatha Christie would pick up Senna pods, a well-known laxative, when she visited Reynold’s and Johnstone’s the chemist in the 1950s.

“She would also buy Pond’s cold cream, which may have been used to help clean ivory carvings from the Middle East found by her husband, who was an archaeologist.

“What Agatha Christie liked about living in Wallingford was being able to keep her privacy, and perhaps we are giving away trade secrets that we should not be. But it’s almost 40 years since she died, and it seems appropriate that we should gather an oral history about this person who was so famous and lived in the town.

“People have been doing their own detective work to reveal more about her life and I hope the author’s family don’t think we are doing anything to denigrate her.

“From these little titbits we can picture Agatha Christie with her shopping basket, popping into the chemist for life’s little necessities.

“I’m sure there are people out there who know even more but are refusing to say because even now they are respecting her desire for privacy.”

As part of the new exhibition, museum staff have recreated the doorway of Winterbrook House.

It’s the museum’s first major exhibition since the death of Mrs Dewey’s husband Stuart in July last year. A co-founder of the museum, he died aged 65.

Mrs Christie’s daughter Rosalind, from her first marriage to Archibald Christie, was born in 1919 and died in 2004.

Rosalind’s son Mathew Prichard unveiled a blue plaque at Winterbrook House in 2010.

Memories of the famous author

“IN 1954, aged 14, I worked in Reynolds and Johnstone’s the chemists. Mrs Mallowan came in once a week and was never kept waiting! She wore a beige raincoat, brogues and a headscarf and carried a basket covered with a linen cloth. She was a matronly lady, medium height and stocky. She regularly bought Pond’s cold cream, Senna pods, Calleva hand cream, cotton wool and vaseline which I had to put in her basket, unwrapped. Though she was so famous she was very ordinary and nice. She bought me some hankies one Christmas for being kind to her.”

“Agatha Christie bought her corsets from Spirella but they often needed altering. I was a dressmaker and hated doing corsets but really wanted to meet Agatha Christie, so I did the job. When I returned them personally to Winterbrook House, the maid took them in and said they were fine, so I never got to meet the great lady after all!”

“Agatha Christie had her hair done at Rita Sloan’s in the High Street every week. She dressed rather eccentrically, wearing odd clothes and shoes. She never read or chatted much but she sat quietly observing people.”

“When I was gardener in 1940 we had Hermy, a young Jewish evacuee, living with us. She came to work with me, to play in the garden at Winterbrook House. In the stables there was a bicycle which belonged to Miss Rosalind Christie. Hermy was keen so I got permission from Miss Christie to let her have the bicycle to learn on. This she soon did and then much to her delight she was told she could have the bicycle!”