Diana schoolbook thrown into bin could sell for princely sum

A teenage Diana Spencer scribbled notes on a copy of Shakespeare's The Tempest and signed her name and the date, 1977, in the book believed to have been hers when she was studying at a boarding school in Kent.

The book, owned by a woman from Keighley, features carefully written notes which suggest the young Diana paid attention in the classroom at West Heath Girls' School in Sevenoaks, even though she once famously described herself as being as "thick as two short planks".

Although she left school having failed all her exams, her notes in the margins of the book indicate that careful consideration was given to the text, although there are a number of spelling errors. A maths calculation shows mental arithmetic was not her forte either.

The book is owned by Yvonne Pullen, a call-centre worker, and was found by her late father, a keen Royalist, discarded in a bin when he worked as a caretaker at an apartment block in Knightsbridge, central London, in around 1998, after the Princess of Wales's death.

It is thought that a schoolfriend of the princess had lived at the address.

Mr Pullen is understood to have had no interest in selling but had the handwriting checked over by a graphologist who confirmed it was indeed likely to have been Diana's.

The book has since been inherited by Ms Pullen who put it away until earlier this year when she discovered that the BBC was filming Antiques Roadshow nearby.

She took it along to the valuation day in April and could now put it up for sale after experts on the programme told her it would probably fetch a four-figure sum and could even be worth as much as 1,500.