EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Shirley Conran will receive her damehood in her hospital bed as she battles serious illness and is ‘on her final journey’, her son Jasper reveals
She has lived the most extraordinary life, from writing the bestsellers Superwoman and Lace to helping create one of our most talented design dynasties.
So what better final act for Shirley Conran than to be given a damehood in her hospital bed.
“My mother is on her last journey,” her son, designer Jasper Conran, explains. “She’s looking forward to her celebration in the sky with all her friends and family. She enjoys listening to messages.”
Before the unique inauguration ceremony on Tuesday, Jasper explained: ‘This afternoon she will be invested with her womanhood in the hospital. The Palace has been incredibly gracious and agreed to do this.”
Dame Shirley, 91, who launched the Ny Breaking’s Femail section in the 1960s, had been too ill to travel to Buckingham Palace to collect her ladyship badge, which was awarded to her last December in the Honors Roll Liz Truss.
Designer Jasper Conran explained that his mother Shirley Conran is ‘on her final journey’ and would receive her womanhood in her hospital bed
Dame Shirley, 91, (pictured here in 2005) was too ill to travel to Buckingham Palace to collect her ladyship badge
The former wife of Habitat co-founder Sir Terence Conran had told me in 2022 that she was surprised she was still not a lady.
“I sometimes wonder why I don’t do that, when you look at the people who do, especially if they’ve donated a million pounds to a royal charity,” she said.
In recent years she has been committed to helping people with math anxiety.
‘I’ve spent over a million pounds of my money on maths books,’ she explained.
‘There are loads of actors who just join in, get £25,000 to cut a ribbon at a supermarket opening, and then say they’ve worked for a good cause and get made a lady for it.’
Dame Shirley revealed her most dramatic and secret challenge of 2020: surviving surgery to remove a brain tumor the size of an orange.
“There was a very good chance that I would die,” she told me at the time.
The former wife of Habitat co-founder Sir Terence Conran said in 2022 she was surprised she was still not a lady (pictured here at the Women of the Year Awards in 2014)
Shirley pictured here in 1990 with her two sons: celebrated designers Jasper (right) and Sebastian Conran (left)
The author and journalist launched the Ny Breaking’s Femail section in the 1960s after being appointed ladies editor of the Ny Breaking at the age of 36 (pictured in 1968)
She has lived the most extraordinary life, from writing the bestsellers Superwoman and Lace to helping create one of our most talented design dynasties
Dame Shirley revealed her most dramatic and secret challenge in 2020: surviving surgery to remove a brain tumor that was the size of an orange (pictured in 2014)
‘The operation took five and a half hours. When I came out, I had two attacks within hours, which put me in intensive care for two days.”
Dame Shirley, who coined the phrase ‘Life is too short to stuff a mushroom’, has two sons with Sir Terence: celebrated designers Jasper and Sebastian Conran.
After the surgery, she revealed that she was working on her memoir.
‘For forty years people have asked me to write my autobiography, but I always said no because I thought it would be boring. When mine is done, I’ll decide if I want it published.”