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Gliding
effortlessly across the White House ballroom with John Travolta, or
performing a pas de deux with Wayne Sleep, she always looked the
picture of elegance.
But
according to the late Princess of Wales herself, she was a far from
graceful mover.
In
previously unseen letters, a teenage Diana admits: ‘Watching me
dance is like watching an elephant.’
The four
letters will be among 75 royal lots auctioned later this month and
could fetch more than £10,000.
In them,
Diana talks of her love for Prince Charles, her excitement at her
forthcoming wedding, and her first pregnancy with Prince William.
In one
handwritten letter to former nanny Mary Clarke, sent from the
Spencer family home at Althorp in 1978, a 17-year-old Diana writes:
‘My love of my life is dancing, things like tap, modern, ballet and
jazz.
‘Also I
love singing, even though my voice sounds awful, and watching me
dance is like watching an elephant...’
In
another, written from Buckingham Palace two weeks before her wedding
at St Paul’s Cathedral in 1981, Diana says: ‘Not long to go now and
about time too!
‘Six
months of being engaged is quite something and definitely to be
avoided. All the family in complete overdrive!’
Diana
also recounts a visit to her family home with Prince Charles. ‘I
took him to Althorp for the w/e which was alright, except that in
our short stay we managed to break two smart chairs and a glass
window.’
In a
reference to her frosty relationship with her stepmother Countess
Spencer, she adds: ‘Raine didn’t know how to take that!’
Mrs
Clarke, 58, who now schools Arab stallions near her Norfolk home,
said yesterday: ‘It will be a wrench to let the letters go but I
will always have my memories of Diana.
'But
those memories are tinged with sadness because her dreams were
completely shattered.’
Colchester-based auctioneers Reeman Dansie will sell Diana’s letters
on September 30.
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