Welcome to the Bottle Street Gazette for Autumn 2024. We begin with Tony Medawar’s delightful talk from this year’s Birthday lunch in June, including a poem of Margery’s written when she was just fourteen, with our thanks to him for making the day memorable.
This time there is also an account of Margery Allingham’s notebook from her time at Viaduct Farm in the 1930. It contains much of interest and confirms how hard she worked.
We welcome the return of Ashley Bowden, this time writing about a young woman, Phinella Martin, yet another detective to come from the Allingham family. We also have the super prizewinning story from this year’s CWA short story competition, written by Susan Breen.
Kate Davies makes the first of several appearances with an acute and entertaining commentary on More Work for the Undertaker. Her knitting and reading group on some of the Allingham stories has been popular this summer.
There are four anniversaries next year: the Maxwell March title, Rogues’ Holiday from 1935; Coroner’s Pidgin from 1945; The Beckoning Lady from 1955; and The Mind Readers from 1965. We shall celebrate Coroner’s Pidgin in the Spring, with the second of Kate Davies’ lively commentaries; and The Beckoning Lady with a profile of Uncle Fred South, which will remind us of how contentious a book this is!
margeryallingham.org.uk 