A MEMORIAL concert will raise funds for the Oxford Alzheimer’s home where novelist Iris Murdoch died 10 years ago.

Miss Murdoch died from Alzheimer’s disease in Oxford in February 1999 aged 79.

But between 1956 and 1986, the novelist and her husband John Bayley lived in Steeple Aston, near Bicester, where villagers are staging the concert in her memory.

The village hall and parish church are hosting the evening of music on Saturday, November 21.

Villagers hope to raise more than £2,000 for Vale House in West Way, Botley, the Alzheimer’s Society and the village church in the process.

Miss Murdoch, a Booker Prize winner, lived at Vale House for about a month before she died.

Alzheimer’s Society patron Dame Judi Dench, who played Miss Murdoch in the movie Iris, said: “The fundraising event in Steeple Aston is a wonderful and enterprising way of celebrating the life and work of this great writer.”

Tricia O’Leary, the manager at 20-bed Vale House, added: “This is a very nice way of remembering her and we do hope her husband John Bayley will attend — he has been invited.

“For a long time, we have been looking to build a bigger care home, so that people can have ensuite facilities and a garden.

“We have bought a plot of land in Sandford-on-Thames and will be submitting a planning application in the near future to South Oxfordshire District Council.”

The evening begins with a reception in the village hall at 6pm, with the concert itself starting in the parish church at 7.30pm.

Tickets for the reception and concert are £20, and £10 for the concert only. For further information, call 01869 347757.

affrench@oxfordmail.co.uk