Family photographs of Poirot’s creator a world away from how most people picture her included in show to mark 125th anniversary of her birth

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

They include photographs of her surfing on to an idyllic Muizenberg beach in South Africa, hanging out in Honolulu wearing her favourite emerald-green knitted bathing suit and roller-skating in an ankle-length skirt down Torquay pier.

The images are of Agatha Christie and are a world away from how most people picture the crime writer – often as a friendly older woman at work on a battered Remington typewriter.

“Hopefully people will get a view of the total person,” said Christie’s grandson Matthew Prichard. “She loved tennis, she loved surfing, she loved roller-skating … she was full of energy.”

The unseen Christie photographs are going on display as part of an exhibition marking the 125th anniversary of her birth.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Agatha Christie surfing. ‘Hopefully people will get a view of the total person,’ her grandson said. Photograph: Agatha Christie Ltd

The Christie family have sifted through their archives to select photographs which show both the familiar and less familiar side to a woman who is the most widely published author of all time, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.

Prichard looks after the Christie estate and has clearly enjoyed helping to organise the exhibition.

He has many fond memories of his grandmother and her second husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan.

“She was the best listener I’ve ever met,” said Prichard. “It was partly the reason she was such a successful author, she actually listened to what people had to say … it was not difficult for her to think of plots.”

During a distinguished career Mallowan was in charge of excavations in Nimrud, the ancient Assyrian site destroyed by Islamic State militants earlier this year.

Prichard recalled of him: “He was a lunatic archaeologist, he was a workaholic and wasn’t happy really unless he was dealing with things at least 2,000 years old.”

One of the photographs in the show is of Agatha, Max and Bingo, a butter-wouldn’t-melt manchester terrier. “He was an absolute terror,” said Prichard. “My grandfather’s legs were black and blue because every time the phone rang he [Bingo] bit whoever was nearest to him.

“They were very fond of him. He has certainly earned his place in this exhibition.”

Christie died in 1976 after a wildly successful career which saw her write more than 80 crime novels and short story collections, with Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple her best known creations. She also wrote 19 plays and six novels under the name Mary Westmacott.

At the centre of the exhibition is a 1969 portrait of Christie which never normally leaves Prichard’s house. It was painted by the Austrian expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka to mark Christie’s 80th birthday.

Prichard has memories of Kokoschka, who would have been in his 80s, opening a bottle of whisky at every sitting with Christie. “My grandmother didn’t drink, which really upset him, but he appeared stone cold sober. I don’t know that he finished the bottle but he certainly started with it. After the last session we went for lunch at my club Boodles … he had kippers and a glass of stout.”

• Agatha Christie: Unfinished Portrait, a life in photographs, is at Bankside Gallery, London from 26 August- 6 September. It will be at Torre Abbey in Torquay from 11 September-18 October as part of the International Agatha Christie festival.

