When the social historian Emily Cockayne first came across an old newspaper article about some “indescribably filthy” letters that were sent to residents of Littlehampton in the 1920s, she knew immediately that she wanted to write about it.
But she never dreamed that recounting the extraordinary real life events she had uncovered in a scholarly book about the history of neighbours would one day net her a film deal for a movie starring Olivia Colman, Timothy Spall and Jessie Buckley.
