[10] A commanding figure at nearly 6 ft (1.8 m) tall, Fairchild became increasingly erratic in her behaviour and constantly argued about religion with her mother, with whom she lived.

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.

[3] At this time she changed her name to Sheppard to avoid detection and made her way back to the vicinity of the convent on Gloucester Avenue where she had taken her vows.

[citation needed] In the late 1960s Fairchild, calling herself 'Miss Mary Sheppard', began to park her Bedford van in front of the houses in affluent Gloucester Crescent in Camden Town where she would annoy the well-heeled homeowners by parking in front of a house and then pile rubbish-filled plastic bags around the vehicle until told to move on.

Over time her hand-painted yellow van moved down the road until in 1971 it stopped outside the home of playwright and author Alan Bennett,[4] who said of her, "She was there in full view of my window while I was working.

However, he allowed her to temporarily park her dilapidated van on his narrow driveway at 23 Gloucester Crescent in Camden, expecting her to leave in a few months.

"[4] Periodically, local nuns would bring Fairchild food to supplement what she had bought with her Social Security payments, though she had neither any means of cooking in the van nor a toilet.

[1] 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.

He adapted the story again for the 2015 film The Lady in the Van, with Maggie Smith again reprising her role, and Nicholas Hytner again directing.