Blue plaque to recognise Diana’s legacy

DIANA, Princess of Wales’ life and legacy is set to be recognised with a blue plaque marking her London home.

English Heritage is honouring Diana with a “memorial tablet” and will announce its location later in the year, but it is thought be the Earl’s Court flat she lived in before marrying the Prince of Wales in 1981.

Diana is the highest profile former member of the monarchy to be bestowed the honour, and was nominated by the London Assembly after the body ran a campaign asking Londoners to suggest women worthy of a blue plaque.

Anna Eavis, English Heritage’s curatorial director, said the princess’s campaigns to highlight issues like HIV/Aids and landmines – and her enduring appeal as “an inspiration and cultural icon to many”, were deciding factors.

Diana’s parents bought her 60 Coleherne Court, a property in a mansion block close to the fashionable King’s Road in Chelsea, when she settled in the capital as a young woman.

She shared the flat with a number of girlfriends and was said to have a sign above her bedroom door which read ‘Chief Chick’.

Diana described the few years she lived in the three-bed flat as “the happiest time of her life”, according to Andrew Morton’s book Diana, In Her Own Words.

“It was juvenile, innocent, uncomplicated and above all fun. I laughed my head off there,” she said.

When she began dating Charles, Diana was reportedly living with friends Anne Bolton and Virginia Pitman, was charging her flatmates £18 a week and was said to be a house proud young woman who set up a cleaning rota.

The apartment was reportedly bought by her parents for £50,000 when the princess – then Lady Diana Spencer – was 18 and working at Young England Kindergarten in Pimlico, central London.

Ms Eavis said: “Her profile and popularity remains undiminished nearly 25 years after she died and clearly a part of that was the ease with which she seemed to communicate with everybody.

“I think what appealed to the panel when they were considering her nomination was she’s undeniably a significant figure in late 20th-century

Britain, with a close London association obviously.

“She did undeniably play an important role in destigmatising HIV/Aids and also towards the very end of her life campaigned in those anti-landmine campaigns which was also very important.”