Happiness Is a Skip Raid; Novelist Deborah Moggach Was So Intrigued by a 'Dark' House in Hampstead, She Wrote a Story about It. When It Came Up for Sale, It Had to Be Hers

Byline: CAROLINE PHILLIPS

SHE throws parties for 60 people in her bedroom, keeps hens in her garden, holds poetry readings on a platform by her bed and has a lavatory in an old lift (the sign on the wall reads: Load Not To Exceed Three Persons).

She also has an ancient animal skull on top of her cupboard, a kitchen built from the contents of Boy George's skip, and she dines at a billiard table - at which her erstwhile lodgers used to play strip pool.

She lived here communally with a bunch of Hungarians but now shares part-time with a Baroness. Welcome to the Hampstead home of Deborah Moggach, author of 16 novels, screenwriter for Pride and Prejudice, and currently adapting her book These Foolish Things for the cinema.

Deborah coveted her Georgian house for years and, lacking the funds to buy …

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Publication information: Article title: Happiness Is a Skip Raid; Novelist Deborah Moggach Was So Intrigued by a 'Dark' House in Hampstead, She Wrote a Story about It. When It Came Up for Sale, It Had to Be Hers. Contributors: Not available. Newspaper title: The Evening Standard (London, England). Publication date: November 16, 2005. Page number: 32. © Not available. COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group.

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