'No one in the world has handled a collection of letters quite like this' - Princess Diana letters up for auction
A collection of 39 Princess Diana letters and Christmas cards is going under the hammer in Cornwall.
The extraordinary collection from Lady Di to a dear friend is being sold by David Lay Auctioneers in Penzance.
Any Diana fan hoping to buy the collection would read about the Princess' life in the 1990s, of the people she met and the cafes and restaurants where she regularly dined in Mayfair.
Mimi Lay, wife of the auctioneer, says she expects a lot of interest from around the world when the collection goes on sale in March 2021.She said that when the auction house sold a single letter from Diana in August there had been fierce bidding from a very wide range of people and it went for £1,750.
The majority of the collection are letters written by the Princess, with one from her mother and one from Robert Fellowes, the Queen’s private secretary at the time.Mimi said: “These letters come from an elderly gentleman who was a very dear friend of Diana and her mother."She was really fond of him. He was impressed with our sale of the other Diana letter in the summer and asked his younger relations to dispose of them as they see fit. They have decided to sell them through us which is very exciting. We’re thrilled.”
In one of her letters, Diana talks about her dear friend Adrian Ward-Jackson, who was a former member of the board of directors of the Royal Ballet who died of AIDS in 1991 at the age of 41.
Princess Diana's letter reads: “Adrian had a very kind heart and was a valuable friend to me, but to see him reach the psychological and spiritual destination of acceptance before he died will be a memory I will treasure, as few manage to make that plateau."I learnt more about inner strength than anything moral during his last few days and, as we know, bereavement is an experience of change and adjustment so life must go on.”
The letters are due to be sold in individual lots on 18 March 2021.
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