Final pictures from inside Diana’s home

FAMILY photos of her beloved sons line the walls. Her own portrait hangs near by. Her collection of cuddly toys cover a sofa.

These moving photographs inside Diana’s private apartments 8 and 9 at Kensington Palace – taken just days after her death in 1997 – offer a unique insight into her world. In the drawing room she recorded her Panorama interview with Martin Bashir, saying: “I’d like to be a Queen of People’s Hearts.”

In the sitting room she watched TV with Princes William and Harry. Her dressing room walls are covered with their pictures. Her collection of toys – including a frog she made as a child – sit on her bedroom couch.

Another snap shows the hallway where her coffin lay the night before her funeral.

The photos were taken by Diana’s butler Paul Burrell. Last night he said: “When the Princess died, I felt it was appropriate to record where she had lived, spent much of her married life and brought up the Princes. These interiors were chosen by the Princess. This was the place she called home.

“Shortly after she died, her memory was erased from Kensington Palace. Apartments 8 and 9 were stripped to the bare walls and floors and every trace of her removed.”

The apartments are now the HQ of William and Harry’s charity.