That lady in the van

Many years ago I read Alan Bennett’s true story about an elderly homeless woman who ended up parked in her van on the drive to his house; had actually felt sorry for her and invited her to park there, little realising at the time that she would stay for fifteen years. Miss Shepherd, as he knew her was very eccentric, and the story I read which was originally published in 1989, was an incredible insight. Miss Shepherd was a very difficult woman, and, living in a van filled with rubbish, there was a very difficult hygiene issue… to put it very mildly. She was cantankerous, irascible, rude, ungrateful, and really not an easy person to have parked on your drive overnight – let alone for over a dozen years.

Bennett turned his short book into a stage play, which became a West End hit in 1999, and now it has become a film; Maggie Smith was the original actress on stage, and she has now reprised her part as Miss Shepherd in a remarkable film starring Alex Jennings as Alan Bennett… Well actually, Jennings is two Alan Bennetts… the film has Alan Bennett the man and Alan Bennett the writer, a device which I thought sounded unusual, contrived… and perhaps rather silly… But I was wrong! It is a stroke of genius to have Alan the man having to deal with not only the difficult Miss Shepherd, and his own very elderly mother whose mental health is failing, and Alan the writer who consciously looks at both people (and no doubt others) as material for his writing.

Miss Shepherd was a real person, and part of the film deals with Bennett gradually discovering who she really was, what her history was, and the reason she ended up in a van on his drive. hers is a fascinating story, and it made me reflect that no doubt many of the people seen on the streets, homeless and destitute, have stories to tell, and have reasons why they are there which is nothing to do with failing in a ‘normal’ life.

Apart from here, I only write fiction, but I know there are aspects of myself and things I do and things I observe in my writing… do I consciously think to myself as I see and do these things ‘oh, that might be useful in my writing…’ No I don’t think I do, but real life feeds my creativity and I have to root my stories in reality so they are credible; even if I were writing fantasy the situations within their own worlds would have to hang together and be believable, and the characters would have to be consistent and engaging.

Bennett is a genius; he was an ordinary boy, the son of a butcher, who through attending a grammar school was able to go to Oxford; there he not only studied but became involved in dramatic productions. He was in the seminal show ‘Beyond the Fringe’ in 1960, and went on to perform in other reviews and plays before his first stage play was produced in 1968, leading to many more plays, TV series and films, as well as books.

We saw the film of The Lady in the Van, last night and it was excellent; thought-provoking, interesting, funny, serious, a great story well-acted and well-produced. I would like to see it again because there is so much in it that it’s difficult to take in on first viewing. There are some devices, such as there being two Alan Bennetts, which I can imagine some viewers may not appreciate, including a ‘play within a play’ scene. I thought it was marvellous, and hope it gets the acclaim it deserves.