![]() But Clara and Agatha found a way forward and from the age of 15 Agatha boarded at a succession of pensions and took piano and singing lessons. ![]() ![]() There were more money worries and talk of selling Ashfield. Clara was distraught and Agatha became her mother’s closest companion. Her father, not well since the advent of financial difficulties, died after a series of heart attacks. When she was five, the family spent some time in France having rented out the family home of Ashfield to economise, and it was here with her “governess” Marie, that Agatha learnt her idiomatic but erratically spelt French. ![]() Agatha invented imaginary friends, played with her animals, attended dance classes and began writing poems when she was still a child. Where did her creativity come from? She absorbed the children’s stories of the time - Edith Nesbit (The Story of the Treasure Seekers, The Railway Children) and Louisa M Alcott (Little Women) but also poetry and startling thrillers from America. ![]()
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