The Lady in the Van

I have been leant a book by Alan Bennett called The Lady in the Van. It is the true story of an eccentric old woman who lived in a van in Camden during the 1970s which I have yet to finish. She is described as painting her van with unmixed gloss paint until it looked as though it had been ‘given a coat of badly made custard or plastered with scrambled egg’. When she is given a statutory order for being a risk to public health while parked outside number 63, the way she shruggingly moves all the way along to number 62 is hilarious, but somehow I think this attitude would only be tolerated in a peculiar old lady.