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Fifty thousand euros, this is the record figure for which it was auctioned the bike of Lady Diana. Much more than a means of transport, but the symbol of the lost freedom of William and Harry’s mother. Also referred to as the “bicycle of shame”, it is a Raleigh Traveler of the 70s that Lady D used to move through the streets of London before her wedding with Carlo.
Diana was only 19 at the time and she was a beautiful and shy girl. He worked at the kindergarten of Pinclo and to get around from his home, at 60 Coleherne Court in Earl’s Court, he used his bike. Diana was very attached to that means of transport, but when she became the future wife of Carlo she was immediately ordered not to use it anymore. Her entry into the Royal Family as the future king’s fiancée was immediately marked by restrictions and obligations, the first concerning her beloved bicycle.
The royal councilors in fact forced her to get rid of it, defining it the “bike of shame”, as “unsuitable for a princess”. Reluctantly Diana had to give up her bicycle. He gave it to Gerard Stonehill, father of a friend of his, who kept it in the garage for many years. In 2008 he decided to discard it, selling it for 211 pounds. Over the years the value of the medium has increased, until you arrive at the auction house Burstow & Hewett.
The amount to win Lady D’s bike was set at 20,000 pounds (about 23,000 euros), but the auction went so well that in the end it was an American who won it for 50,000 euros. . “The news always on the front page about Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, suggests a parallelism between the treatment reserved to her by the press and the Royal Institution and the experience of the people’s princess, Diana”, the comment of the auction house .
Certainly the bike tells a part of Diana’s life, who went from being a carefree girl to a future queen crushed by royal duties. Impossible not to find a parallelism with what Meghan Markle told in her interview with Oprah Winfrey in which she complained about the difficulty of adapting to the rigid life of the Court, devoid of freedom.
