A VERY surprising answer for Lady Diana when she asked a girl to be her maid of honor

One of Princess Diana’s bridesmaids will make a TV appearance in an attempt to sell her lavish family home after the breakdown of her relationship.

When Sarah Jane Gaselee bought two adjoining flats in London’s Knightsbridge nine years ago, she and her property developer Paul Andrews spent a year turning them into a £5.25 million family home.

The couple have converted the two flats, costing £3 million and £850,000 in 2014, into a four-bedroom apartment, excavating to make higher ceilings and creating a steam and laundry room.

But Covid made it a hard sell as the relationship fell apart, and now Sarah Jane is appearing in the Channel 4 show Britain’s Most Expensive Houses – giving viewers a rare insight into her life in the process.

It was Sarah Jane’s father who introduced her to Princess Diana and they corresponded when she attended Southover school in Lewes, East Sussex. Sarah Jane, left, is pictured holding her mother Mary’s hand as they leave St Paul’s after pre-wedding practice. In the back, Clementine Hambro is carried by her mother

Former bridesmaid Sarah Jane Gaselee wants to sell this luxury Knightsbridge apartment, worth £1.7 million

The flat will be featured on Channel 4’s most expensive homes

Sarah Jane, who has two children, Ashley, 17, and Ruby, 15, has spent six months and £120,000 converting the property into adjoining apartments, linked by a secret door, in a bid to speed up the sale.

The larger three-bedroom apartment has been sold by Sotheby’s International Realty for just under £3.85 million, giving the couple a profit of around £700,000, while the smaller two-bedroom apartment, valued at £1.7 million, is rented.

“We’re selling it now because it’s time to move on to the next project and it’s too big for us when we’re three or even four,” says Sarah, who works for property select UK purchasing agency and does introductions and viewings for high net worth people.

‘We want something more permanent, maybe not in the middle of Knightsbridge. We could have done a lot better with it if we hadn’t had Covid and all that stuff.”

It’s now 42 years since Sarah Jane, then 11, was chosen as one of Princess Diana’s five bridesmaids – her father Nick Gaselee was a racehorse trainer who once rode for the Queen Mother and taught Prince Charles how to ride.

He introduced her to Princess Diana and they corresponded when Sarah-Jane went to Southover boarding school, in Lewes, East Sussex. “I absolutely hated it,” she once said.

Sarah Jane Gaselee pictured in 2001

The exterior of the Knightsbridge block. The sale followed the breakup of a relationship

The kitchen-dining room in the luxury apartment

A stylish bathroom in her home in Knightsbridge

One of the bedrooms. Covid-19 had made a quick sale impossible

“I’d sneak into the payphone and call Diana and tell her how terribly miserable I was and how sympathetic she was. I missed a lot of my education because it was so horrible. Diana kept me going. She was always so sweet and kind.’

Diana asked Sarah Jane to be maid of honor when they ran a racecourse together. Diana was racing around on her back with me and she said, “Would you like to be my bridesmaid?” I said, “Am I going to be on television?” And she burst into laughter.

“The Diana I remember was smart and sweet and funny. But her life was getting more and more difficult. I wrote to her after Andrew Morton’s book was published to say how sorry I was for all she had been through.

“She wrote back such a lovely letter. She said: I understand the pain and suffering of people all over the world.” I’ll always remember that.’

Sarah Jane, fourth from left, was 11 when she was asked to be one of Lady Diana’s five bridesmaids

Sarah Jane and partner pictured at the 2007 memorial service marking the tenth anniversary of Diana’s death

Sarah Jane was a guest at both Diana’s funeral and the memorial service held to mark Diana’s death. “I went to her funeral, but I wasn’t with the other bridesmaids, so I don’t know who went there,” she recalls.

“But ten years after Diana died, her boys had a memorial for her and all the bridesmaids and pages sat together, so that was sweet.”

• Britain’s Most Expensive Houses is on Channel 4 on June 22 at 9pm