More than 25 years have passed since the death of princess of the peoplebut still the curiosity about the most private details of his life does not diminish. A curiosity that fuels a rather thriving auction market: after the jewels, the dresses, the bicycle and the car of the times when Lady Diana was just a kindergarten teacher, now come the private letters written by the princess to a couple of dear friends during some of the most difficult years of the her life, those of her divorce from Prince Charles.I’m handwritten letters on Kensington Palace letterhead, where Diana lived, and directed to a couple of friends who decided to auction 32 of them in a single lot with a starting price of 90,000 pounds, at the Lay’s Auctioneers of London: “We would like to give other people the opportunity to acquire a memory of the princess and, in doing so, support causes that were important to her” said Susie and Tarek Kassem, who said they were extremely privileged “to have had the opportunity to know the princess so closely” and promise to donate the proceeds to the charities supported by Diana.
The value of the writings lies in their content: Diana writes to her friend Susie that she would never have agreed to part with Prince Charles if she had known how much suffering this would have brought, if she had known how “desperate and ugly” everything would have been. We therefore speak of regret, with respect to the choices made, and we go further. In some letters the Princess of Wales speaks of her isolation from the royal family, and of the fear that her phone would be intercepted.They are letters in which Diana seeks the support of people dear to her during a period of profound suffering, written between 1995 and 1996. Friends of the princess, Susie and Tarek Kassem argue that the decision to sell them was not taken lightly: “owning these documents is a great responsibility” and they did not want to “pass this burden on to their children”. However, they have decided to jealously keep the most controversial and intimate ones.
The content of some letters in detail
One of the most important door the date of 2 December 1995, the day following the fateful one in which Queen Elizabeth II “advised” (as if they could respond with a no) to his son Carlo and his daughter-in-law Diana to divorce. In 1992 the biography on the princess signed by the journalist Andrew Morton came out, with its bombshell revelations about Diana’s unhappiness, betrayals and suicide attempts; in 1995 the princess gave her television interview on the BBC’s Panorama programme. The game was over for her, divorce was the only possible solution. “I may have been described as a butterfly, but I don’t want to fly away from this lovely family,” Diana writes in her letter to friends Susie and Tarek, referring not to the royal family, but to the Kassem family. In the same letter, she repeatedly thanked them for standing by her side, and for “listening to all my chats.” She writes: “it’s good to be a trio!”. And then, with a lunge against the royal family: “I am immensely touched by the fact that both of you are protective of me .. I’m not used to it!”.
In a letter dated April 28, 1996, Diana instead recounts having canceled an evening at the Opera due to the tension caused by the ongoing separation from Carlo. She reads: “I am going through a very difficult moment, the pressure is serious and it is coming from all sides.” “Sometimes it’s too hard to keep my head up, I’m on my knees today and I just want this divorce to go through because the cost to pay for all of this is so high.”His handwriting, normally open and flowing, deteriorates towards the end of the letter, probably because – graphologists say – he was struggling with his emotions as he wrote.
In another letter dated May 20, 1996, Diana told Mrs Kassem that the Kensington Palace telephones were jammed: “If I had known a year ago what I was going through this divorce, I never would have agreed. It’s desperate and ugly.”
In others, between letters and postcards, the princess warmly thanks the couple – whom she met for the first time in August 1995, during her regular visits to the Royal Brompton Hospital where she also met heart surgeon Hasnat – for having showered her with gifts and for their emotional support. The Kassems, who live in London, have entrusted the lot of letters to the Lay auctioneers of Penzance and are awaiting the auction, scheduled for February 16th.
