Diana’s statue to be moved from Harrods
MORE than 20 years after Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed died in a Paris car crash a memorial to the couple is to be removed from Harrods and handed back to the store’s former owner Mohamed Al-Fayed.
The Qatari owners of the upmarket Knightsbridge department store want to hand over the 10ft bronze statue of the couple, entitled Innocent Victims, and the contents of a shrine Mr Al-Fayed built in the landmark emporium.
It features a fountain and photographs of the pair behind a pyramid-shaped display that holds a wine glass smudged with lipstick from Diana’s last dinner as well as what is claimed to be an engagement ring Dodi purchased for her the day before they died in August 1997.
Harrods, owned since 2010 by Qatar Holdings – part of the Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund – has decided that it is the right time to give the memorial back to Dodi’s grieving father.
To mark last August’s anniversary Diana’s sons, the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry, have announced plans to commission a statue commemorating the Princess in the grounds of Kensington Palace.
Michael Ward, managing director at Harrods, said: “We are very proud to have played our role in celebrating the lives of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al-Fayed at Harrods and to have welcomed people from around the world to visit the memorial for the past 20 years.
“With the announcement of the new official memorial statue to Diana, Princess of Wales at Kensington Palace, we feel that the time is right to return this memorial to Mr Al-Fayed and for the public to be invited to pay their respects at the palace.”
Harrods and the Al-Fayed family are now in discussions about how and when the handover will happen but in a statement yesterday, Mr Al-Fayed, 88, and his family accepted that almost eight years after he sold the £1.5billion business it was time to move the memorial.
A statement said: “We are grateful to Qatar Holdings for preserving the Dodi and Diana memorial at Harrods until now.
“It has enabled millions of people to pay their respects and remember these two remarkable people. It is now time to bring them home.”
The business magnate erected the shrine at the base of the shop’s Egyptian Escalator soon after the couple’s deaths.
In 2005 he added the statue, designed by Bill Mitchell which shows the pair beneath the wings of an albatross, symbolizing freedom and eternity, with the waters of the Mediterranean lapping around their feet.
FOR 20 years the memorial to Diana and Dodi in Harrods has been a shrine for visitors who want to pay respect to their memory – how sad it will no longer be in situ.
But we have the prospect of a new Diana statue at Kensington Palace. And not before time.