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6th January 2014.

Though I've learnt never entirely to believe in a film until it actually happens,

it does seem likely that this autumn we will be shooting the

lady in the van. This is the story of Miss Mary Shepard, the elderly eccentric who took up

residence in my garden in 1974 and living there in a van until her death 15 years later.

Maggie Smith played Miss Shepard on the stage in 1999, and all being well will star in the

film, with Nicholas Heitner directing.

To date, I've written two drafts of the script, and am halfway through a third.

The house where the story happened, 23 Gloucester Crescent in Camden Town, is currently lived in by the photographer Anthony Croller, though many of my belongings are still there.

This afternoon I go round to start the lengthy process of clearing out some of the books and papers so that it can be used for the filming.

I first saw the house in 1968.

Jonathan Miller lives in the same street

and Rachel, his wife, saw the for-sale sign go up.

It belonged to an American woman who kept parrots

and there were perches in the downstairs room,

and also in its small garden. Slightly older than the other houses in the Crescent, like many of them

it had been a lodging house, so every room had its own gas meter, and some had wash basins.

I did most of the decorating myself,

picking out the blurred and white-wash-freeze in the drawing-room with a nail file,

a job that these days would be done by steam cleaning,

though then I was helped by some of the actors in my first play, 40 years on,

...