Author and screenwriter Deborah Moggach has told Nightingale supporters that visits to the south London home had inspired her to write a novel about the elderly, These Foolish Things — on which the hit movie, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, was based.

Ms Moggach was guest speaker at a Nightingale literary lunch at Claridge’s in central London on Monday. Her talk included anecdotes about the making of the film and her experiences in Hollywood.

The lunch raised £100,000 for Nightingale and its newly merged partner, Hammerson House in north-west London, some of whose backers were among an attendance of 250-plus.