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Margaret Fairchild
Margaret Mary Fairchild (4 January 1911 – 28 April 1989), also known as Mary Teresa Sheppard, Miss Shepherd and M T Sheppard, was a British homeless woman. Earlier in life, she had been a concert pianist and nun.
Her life was depicted in the 2015 film The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett in which she was played by Dame Maggie Smith. Smith had previously played her in a 1999 play of the same name and a radio adaptation for BBC Radio 4 in 2009.
Margaret Fairchild was born in 1911 in Hellingly in Sussex, the daughter of Harriett (née Burgess; 1879–1963) and George Bryant Fairchild (1866–1944), a surveyor and sanitary inspector. Her brother was Leopold George Fairchild (1908–1994).
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 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. 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. 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. However, she "had little to do with the nuns, or they with her", according to Bennett's book about her.
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Margaret Fairchild
Margaret Mary Fairchild (4 January 1911 – 28 April 1989), also known as Mary Teresa Sheppard, Miss Shepherd and M T Sheppard, was a British homeless woman. Earlier in life, she had been a concert pianist and nun.
Her life was depicted in the 2015 film The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett in which she was played by Dame Maggie Smith. Smith had previously played her in a 1999 play of the same name and a radio adaptation for BBC Radio 4 in 2009.
Margaret Fairchild was born in 1911 in Hellingly in Sussex, the daughter of Harriett (née Burgess; 1879–1963) and George Bryant Fairchild (1866–1944), a surveyor and sanitary inspector. Her brother was Leopold George Fairchild (1908–1994).
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 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. 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. 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. However, she "had little to do with the nuns, or they with her", according to Bennett's book about her.