From concert pianist to lady in the car: the extraordinary life of Anne Naysmith

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/11/extraordinary-life-anne-naysmith-pianist-lady-in-car

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She led an extraordinary life, enjoying success as a concert pianist when she was a young woman, before spending her middle years living in a battered old car following a failed romance and latterly turning a scrap of land at the foot of a London Underground embankment into her makeshift home and garden.

Friends and neighbours of Anne Naysmith are coming to terms with the loss of a familiar and beloved character after the 77-year-old was killed in a collision with a lorry on one of the streets she has lived on and paced around for decades.

Tributes poured in not just from residents of her west London neighbourhood but also from the Royal College of Music, where she once studied, and from community leaders and politicians, with whom she sometimes clashed as they tried – and perhaps failed – to understand her unconventional life choices.

Money is being collected to make sure that Naysmith receives a fine funeral, and candles and lanterns were lit in her scrap of a garden. There were calls for the car park where the garden is sited to be named in her honour.

Betty Furner, a neighbour and friend, said: “Sometimes people are held in high esteem because of their job or profession. Some, like Anne, are respected because they are true to themselves. She had dignity, she was her own woman. She was entrenched in who she was and her own intelligence. She didn’t ask questions, she had the answers.”

Related: Anne Naysmith: The lady in the car

The story of Naysmith has echoes of Miss Shepherd, who lived in a van on the drive of the writer Alan Bennett’s home across the capital in Camden and was immortalised in his essay and play The Lady in the Van. Both were talented musicians who fell on hard times, had run-ins with the authorities and remained fiercely independent and proud.

Naysmith was born plain Anne Smith – she tacked on the “Nay” in her later years – in Essex in 1937. She and her family moved to Hounslow, west London, when Anne was eight. She was a promising pianist and won a place at the Royal Academy of Music.

At 18, Naysmith rented a room in Chiswick. She took a job teaching music at a convent school in Berkshire and also taught at Trinity College of Music in London. Careful with her money, she managed to save enough to buy a Ford Consul and to move into better digs at 22 Prebend Gardens in Chiswick.

Her musical career seemed to be taking off. When she was 25 she played Beethoven, Bach and Debussy at Leighton House in Holland Park, west London, and she went on to perform symphony concerts under the auspices of Sir Adrian Boult. In 1967 her mother hired the Wigmore Hall in central London and Naysmith took top billing. A reviewer from the Times praised the “rich warmth” of her interpretation of Rachmaninov.

By the early 70s she had given up teaching and run into money problems. At about the same time a romance with a choral singer failed. Her financial position worsened until, to her horror, she was asked to leave her lodgings. Believing she had been wronged, she took to sleeping in her car nearby and agitated to get her rooms back. She never did.

Naysmith roamed London, becoming a regular visitor to the Barbican music library, and was sometimes to be found chatting knowledgeably to crowds outside the Albert Hall. As her clothes fell apart she stitched new ones with rags. She was ingenious, using pigeon feathers to insulate the plastic bags she wore on her feet. She always refused handouts.

In 2002 her beloved car was towed away after a neighbour complained it was blighting the area, which had become gentrified since Naysmith first moved in. She carved a makeshift shelter out of vegetation in at the foot of an embankment, where she cooked and tended to her little garden.

In 2012 her hideaway was left in tatters when workers hacked back the vegetation and cut down the cherry and plum trees she had planted. Transport for London said the workers had not realised the plot was special. She was devastated but set about replanting and restoring the garden.

She slept elsewhere. Neighbours would never say where, in order to protect her, but it is thought that for more than 10 years she bedded down in a school doorway most nights. She would arrive after night classes finished and would be gone before school began the next morning.

Why she was on the move in the early hours on Tuesday when she was involved in the fatal collision is not clear. Police are investigating.

The local councillor John Todd dealt frequently with Naysmith at his surgeries. She always had plenty to say about local issues (people cycling on pavements and notices pinned into trees were among her bugbears). But she always declined offers of help, housing or even a bus pass.

The leader of Hounslow council, Steve Curran, said the authority was “incredibly saddened”. He said: “We understand how popular she was with the local community in Chiswick. Our deepest condolences are with those who knew Anne. She was a real character who will be fondly remembered by many.”

Across town, Naysmith was remembered at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music. It tweeted: “Sad news: Anne Naysmith – former concert artist, cherished Chiswick character – died last night.”

Sad news: #piano #alum Anne Naysmith – former concert artist, cherished Chiswick character – died last night. http://t.co/VlfHJs7Rsu

Many Chiswick residents paid tribute on the pages of the community website ChiswickW4.com. Charlotte Kasner wrote: “She was so much a part of Chiswick. Over the years she gradually told me a little about her life but I learned never to initiate the conversation or indeed offer her so much as a boiled sweet, although she was always offering to share her tea or snacks.”

Robert Fish wrote: “One day many years ago I heard her singing like an angel in the street. It was obvious she was a talented musician. Sometimes I felt sorry for her, but often I reflected that, with that fierce pride of hers, she probably never felt sorry for herself.”

Stuart Kerr wrote: “Not a nice way to go but … she lived her life exactly the way she chose – and for that alone … round of applause!”