Princess Diana hated London, honeymoon letter reveals
Princess Diana hated London, honeymoon letter reveals
Steve BirdSat, May 23, 2026 at 1:17 PM UTC
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The Princess added that it felt ‘wonderful’ being married during the royal couple’s Mediterranean cruise on the Royal Yacht Britannia - Princess Diana Archive/2007 Getty Images
Diana, Princess of Wales, hated London, a previously unpublished letter to a schoolfriend reveals.
Writing from Balmoral Castle shortly after the 1981 royal wedding, the Princess said she was enjoying “endless sun” and “calm seas” during a cruise on the Royal Yacht Britannia.
The Princess married the then Prince Charles when she was 20, having left school at 16 and dropped out of a finishing school in Switzerland before starting work in a nursery.
In her note, written on royal-crested paper and sent to Katherine Hanbury, a former classmate at West Heath Girls’ School in Kent, she wrote: “We had a blissful honeymoon with endless sun and luckily calm seas… we are now up in Scotland until the end of October, which is a big treat for us – I adore being outside all day & hate London!”
She also added: “Its [sic] wonderful being married – I think its [sic] safe to say that after two months…!”
The royal-crested note sent from Princess Diana to Katherine Hanbury, a former classmate at West Heath Girls’ School, during her honeymoon - https://www.gorringes.co.uk/
The letter suggests she was adapting to her new life and role within the Royal family. She wrote: “Its [sic] a case of playing with grown ups!”
The couple had boarded the Royal Yacht Britannia after their wedding on July 29, 1981, for a 12-day cruise of the Mediterranean before heading to Balmoral for several months.
The letter, dated Sept 27, is among a collection of items to be auctioned by the Princess’s school friend Katherine. The consignment includes photos of the future princess at school. One shows her sitting with a number of friends, including the actress Tilda Swinton and film director Joanna Hogg.
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The collection will go under the hammer at Gorringe’s Fine Art & Interiors sale in Lewes, East Sussex, in July. It has an estimate of £4,000-£6,000.
The collection of items that Katherine Hanbury is auctioning in July, including photographs of the late Princess at school - https://www.gorringes.co.uk/
The timing of this sale coincides with what would have been the 45th anniversary of the then Prince and Diana’s wedding.
Albert Radford, books and manuscripts specialist at Gorringe’s, said: “This intimate archive offers a rare glimpse of Diana, Princess of Wales, before duty and fame had the final say.
“Through our client’s recollections from West Heath Girls’ School, Diana comes across as deeply unassuming and domestically minded; someone whose real ambition was simply to have a family and take pride in ordinary things.
“She remembers Diana volunteering to clean the house of the headmistress, and it is memories like this and the collection that has come to light, that present the real young Diana in a way that is completely at odds with the public persona that was created by others.
“She appears here as a young woman suspended between love and history – hopeful, unguarded, and not yet entirely claimed by the institution that would come to define her. In these small, fragile traces, innocence lingers – along with a quiet stubborn belief in something as simple and elusive as love.”
The timing of the auction will coincide with what would have been the 45th anniversary of the then Prince Charles and Diana’s wedding - Serge Lemoine
The photographs include one of the Princess outside the art room, one of her in a block known as the “cowsheds”, and a third shows her standing outside, close to the playing fields.
The Princess married Prince Charles at St Paul’s Cathedral with an estimated 750 million people watching across the world. The couple produced William and Harry, but the marriage fell apart in 1992 and they divorced in 1996.
She was killed in a car crash in Paris on Aug 31, 1997, aged 36.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
