A Forgotten Princess

Heritage Open Days gives me a way to connect hidden histories with living experience. I believe heritage is not merely academic history, but something sacred — because it concerns memory, and the souls of those who came before us, who need to be cared for with understanding, compassion, and empathy. I also understand this personally, as someone who is an amputee — my left foot in life and my right foot in death. My right foot is gone, but I still carry it as part of my story. It is history, and it is heritage too — a remembrance of what was lost, and what continues to live through me. That’s why I feel there is a sanctity to heritage: it’s the remembrance of the living that has been lost, but not forgotten.

I have been researching the life of Princess Irene Duleep Singh and treated the event as a prelude to next year’s centenary of her death. It was a way to test how her story lands with contemporary audiences and to refine the balance between history, empathy, and lived experience. Heritage Open Days gave me the platform to turn that research into something healing and communal: a conversation across centuries, linking royal history to real lives today.

My role combined researcher and heritage facilitator, encouraging audience participation in philosophical discussions throughout. I approached the project collaboratively, with support from Samaritans Tamworth to help ensure an inclusive and supportive environment. Every element — from the storytelling tone to the event’s timing after World Suicide Prevention Day — was designed to invite reflection, challenge stigma, and turn remembrance into dialogue.

The difference it makes

Participating in Heritage Open Days has been transformative. It demonstrated that difficult and often stigmatised subjects — such as suicide and mental illness — can be explored responsibly within heritage spaces when approached with care, empathy, and understanding.

The experience has strengthened my confidence as someone new to heritage volunteering, confirming that my work can hold emotional as well as historical value. My hope is to open this discourse beyond Sikh and Punjabi audiences, to include British and English audiences too — because the story of the Koh-i-Noor diamond unites us as much as it divides us. It is, after all, a gem we now share as part of our collective heritage — one that reflects both our intertwined histories and our shared responsibility to understand them.

Presenting as part of the national festival validated years of research and inquiry, and showed that sensitive storytelling has a rightful place in the heritage landscape. Meeting photographer staff from the National Trust also provided valuable insight into how storytelling and visual heritage can work together to engage audiences with sensitivity and depth. While the positive audience response encouraged me to continue developing this theme towards next year’s centenary — with renewed belief that remembrance can be both ethical and transformative.

The venue was Erasmus Darwin House, where I already volunteer and feel comfortable, and its location in Lichfield city centre made it ideal for public access. I initially planned to offer both an exhibition and a series of talks. However, I discovered that the museum lift was out of order, which meant the upper floor — where the exhibition would have been held — was not accessible. As a disabled person myself, I’m always mindful of reasonable adjustments. Someone using a wheelchair would not have been able to access the space, and even I found it challenging with my prosthetic leg.

To ensure accessibility, I restructured the event to focus on in-person talks and also provided recorded versions online. As this was my first time running a Heritage Open Days event, I chose to pre-record the talk on Zoom rather than deliver it live, to avoid any risk from uncertain internet connections. The format worked well overall, and for next year’s centenary I plan to trial a hybrid version — recorded live, so both in-person and online audiences can share the experience together.

Another challenge was navigating access to archival materials about the Duleep Singh family. I have been open about experiencing gatekeeping difficulties — particularly as a disabled woman — because private collectors are not bound by the Equality Act 2010 in the same way that public archives, museums, and libraries are. Private collectors can therefore exercise the prerogative to deny access without reason, which in turn affects transparency around provenance and genuine copyright status. This created uncertainty over which images I could use with confidence.

To address this, I researched the issue in depth and checked the validity of the copyright claims myself. I learned that when a private collector owns an original copy of an out-of-copyright image, that ownership does not create new copyright — yet such claims are sometimes made, which can mislead or discourage legitimate public use. There is an important distinction between controlling access to a physical image and owning copyright, which, in the case of public-domain works, no longer exists. When the underlying image is in the public domain (under the pre-1945 rule) and no new creative input has been added, it remains safe for public use.

By verifying this through publicly available guidance from the UK Intellectual Property Office, I was able to proceed with confidence, ensuring my use was both lawful and ethical. The experience reinforced for me the importance of protecting public-domain heritage so that people can engage with it freely, without fear of being misled or excluded by barriers the law does not recognise.