“Ah, here we are – more visitors to the ‘museum’.”
It’s a common experience for brothers Noel and Silvio Farrugio who own Diana’s pub in the tourist hot spot of Qawra in Malta: seeing open-mouthed fans of the late Princess trying to take in the hundreds of pieces of memorabilia on show.
While it must be irritating for the pair when people walk in, gawp, take pictures then leave without buying a drink, the pub has been attracting locals and tourists alike for years. Set up by Noel and Silvio’s late father – a great fan of the iconic royal – in the early 1990s, it was renamed after Diana in 1996 and has stayed much the same ever since.
As well as an instantly recognisable sign featuring the face of the ‘People’s Princess’ drawing punters in, the walls inside are covered in memorabilia of Diana. Plates, photos, portraits – you name it, everything is there.
This Qawra pub is plastered with Lady Di memorabilia
(Saskia O’Donoghue)
Noel tells me that two prints of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip came from their grandmother’s house but the vast majority of the pieces emblazoning the walls and shelves of the low-lit space come as gifts from fans of Diana – and of the pub itself.
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The Farrugio family have long been stans of the princess, and it’s a sentiment shared with many on the island. Silvio tells me that, up until at least a decade after her untimely death in 1997, fans would lay flowers at the pub every year on the anniversary of her passing. The brothers say that the interest in her had died down a little in recent years but the popularity of television’s The Crown is bringing Diana – and this quasi-shrine – to a new audience.
And it’s not just those who come to take pictures with no intention of paying for anything who frequent the offbeat watering hole. The pub boasts a jovial atmosphere where local accents mix harmoniously with British, Italian, French and German voices.
She made the world a better place and I’m just so glad I got to be on earth at the same time as her
Sitting at an outdoor table in the warm November sun, Liam, a 28-year-old on holiday from Liverpool, tells me Diana means very little to him as he was a baby when she died. He comes to the pub “for the food” – traditional British pub fare, including a ribeye steak dish and a bright orange cocktail…
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