More than 12 years after her death, Princess Diana’s scribbled notes on Shakespeare reveals she had an interest in literature despite the late Princess of Wales describing herself as “thick as two short planks”.
Although Diana left the school having failed all of her examinations, the notes scrawled by the teenage Diana on the copy of William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest indicate she did at least try hard in class, the Daily Mail reported.
The book bears Diana’s signature and the date 1977 on the first page. At this time she was studying for O-levels at West Heath Girls’ School in Sevenoaks, Kent. At the end of Act IV, Scene 1, Diana, then coming up to 16, has underlined a passage in which the spirit Ariel says: “Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou / Shalt have the air at freedom.” Underneath she wrote: “If this play is farewell of Shakespeare to stage there is another thing to show he is leaving. Ariel stands for his seriousness.”
On the next page, at the start of Act V, Diana has highlighted a quotation and scribbled next to it: “Turning point perhaps!” And across two blank pages at the back of the book, she wrote: “The play is summing up a lifetime.”
However, the notes also betray Diana’s pedestrian grasp of basic math — apparently unable to mentally calculate £2.80 pounds plus £8, she uses space under her signature to work out this simple sum by adding the figures in columns.