Margaret Fairchild

Margaret Mary Fairchild (4 January 1911 – 28 April 1989), also known as Mary Teresa Sheppard, Miss Shepherd and M T Sheppard,

A gifted pianist, according to her brother, around 1932 the middle-class and well-spoken Margaret Fairchild studied at the École Normale de Musique de Paris in Paris under the virtuoso Alfred Cortot, and it has been said that she later played in a promenade concert; however, she does not appear in the BBC's online Proms performance archive.

In 1936, as Mary Teresa, she became a novice in the Convent of the Society of the Helpers of the Holy Souls on Gloucester Avenue in Regent's Park (later the Japanese School in London and now the North Bridge House School), a short distance from Gloucester Crescent where she famously returned decades later. Later in 1936 she was at St Joseph's Priory on Harrow Road West in Dorking.

In 1939, Fairchild was a religious sister and schoolteacher at St Gilda's Catholic School in Yeovil, Somerset. Her brother related that in the convent Fairchild was forced to abandon her love of music and playing in order to concentrate on her faith and she left the order following a breakdown. Her fellow nuns described her as "argumentative".

During World War II, Fairchild was trained to drive ambulances by the ATS, which began her love for vehicles and driving. From at least 1950 to 1957 she lived with her mother at 98 Elgin Crescent in Notting Hill.

A commanding figure at nearly tall, Fairchild became increasingly erratic in her behaviour and constantly argued about religion with her mother, with whom she lived. Her brother had her committed to Banstead Hospital, a psychiatric hospital, from which she escaped. She was to abscond from various other mental hospitals until she remained at large for a year and a day which legally demonstrated her competence to live unsupervised. Later she had an accident when the van she was driving was hit by a motorcyclist who subsequently died. Fairchild believed she was to blame for the accident and left the scene without giving her details, thereafter living in fear of arrest.

The 'genteel vagrant' Margaret Fairchild died in her van on the driveway at 23 Gloucester Crescent in Camden in 1989 aged 78. After a funeral service in the Catholic church of Our Lady of Hal in Camden Town she was buried in an unmarked grave in St Pancras and Islington Cemetery.

Fairchild's collection of self-penned political pamphlets, hand-written notes and shopping lists are in the Alan Bennett Archive at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.

The Lady in the Van

Bennett wrote The Lady in the Van based on his experiences with Margaret Fairchild. The story was first published in 1989 as an essay in the London Review of Books. In 1990 Bennett published it in book form. In 1999 he adapted it into a stage play at the Queen's Theatre in London which starred Maggie Smith, who received a Best Actress nomination at the 2000 Olivier Awards and which was directed by Nicholas Hytner. The stage play includes two characters named Alan Bennett. On 21 February 2009 it was broadcast as a radio play on BBC Radio 4, with Smith reprising her role and Bennett playing himself. He adapted the story again for the 2015 film The Lady in the Van, with Smith again reprising her role, and Hytner again directing.

Other theatrical representations Fairchild was played by Pamela Buchner in a 2008 version of the play at the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick in 2008. Nichola McAuliffe played Fairchild in 2011 in a production of The Lady in the Van at Hull Truck Theatre. In 2017 Sara Kestelman played Fairchild at the Theatre Royal in Bath. In a 2019 production by the Melbourne Theatre Company in Melbourne Australia, Fairchild was played by Miriam Margolyes.