The World of Interiors

In the 1970s Alan Bennett invited a lady to park in his drive in Camden. Fifteen years

later she was still there living amid plastic bags and old pamphlets in her papal-

yellow Bedford van. With the advent of a film based on the playwright’s memoir

and the resulting forensic reconstruction of her four-wheeled home he recalls the

‘distressed’ décor of the unmovable Miss Shepherd. Photography: Antony Crolla r

Opposite and this page: Miss Shepherd first parked her van reconstructed here for the film on Gloucester

Crescent before moving it to the drive of No. 23. Plastic bags were an auxiliary wardrobe but also a source of

anxiety for her. Shepherd once asked Bennett to check under the vehicle for IRA bombs: ‘All I can see is a box

that could be suspect’ he told her. ‘No’ she replied.’That’s just some Hobnobs that were on offer at Fine Fare’

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