Remembering Sussex's Dame Maggie Smith: Legendary actress shared brilliant anecdote from visit to Storrington Waitrose

Actress Dame Maggie, known best for the Harry Potter films and Downton Abbey, has died at the age of 89.

Her family revealed the news in a statement this afternoon (Friday, September 27).

The iconic actress lived in Fittleworth – a village and civil parish in the district of Chichester – and was known to do her shopping at Waitrose in Storrington.

The national treasure admitted she ‘sometimes’ shops at the Waitrose store in the village after speaking in a rare television interview in October 2015 on BBC One’s The Graham Norton Show.

Dame Maggie was on the show to promote her film ‘The Lady in the Van’ an adaption of the 1999 hit West End play by Alan Bennett.

The play was based on a true story in Mr Bennett’s life and Mrs Smith plays Miss Mary Shepherd, a transient woman living in her car on Mr Bennett’s (played by Alex Jennings) driveway.

Speaking on the show Dame Maggie said: “She (Miss Shepherd) lived in Storrington which is quite near where I live. I live in a village next door.

“There used to be a huge nunnery in Storrington and when I go there, which I do sometimes, I go to Waitrose and various things, I always think, I wonder what was it like when she was here as a sort of young person.”

When asked by Graham Norton if her appearance in Downton Abbey had made people recognise her more she said: “Funnily enough I was in Waitrose in Storrington and a little boy was at the checkout with his mother and kept looking at me.

“He kept looking at me and looking at me and I said ‘can I help you?’ and he said ‘it’s alright it will come to me in a minute’. I thought it was so sweet.”