A mother-of-three has explained how a chance appearance in a Dutch magazine has seen her life change from a personal assistant to modelling as a Princess Diana lookalike.

Pauline Coppard, from Borough Green has also been a secretary, and volunteered as governor at Maidstone Grammar School for Boys, but she never expected to add appearing as the Royal icon to her CV.

While the 57-year-old has been compared to the princess since the age of 18, she has never tried to copy her look and modestly brushed away compliments.

Royal fans across the nation are gearing up for series four of The Crown, on Netflix, available from Sunday, November 15.

Playing Diana during the years of her wedding and subsequent troubled marriage to Charles, Prince of Wales is Emma Corrin, 24, who originally comes from Tunbridge Wells.

The actress has already hit screens playing a young and nervous Lady Diana Spencer.

For Mrs Coppard, she began noticing comments on the resemblance after the princess’s untimely death in 1997.

It wasn’t until five years ago she was asked to model as a lookalike for a Dutch magazine she started to notice the resemblance herself which some described as ‘uncanny’.

Mrs Coppard said: “A friend out of the blue sent my photograph off to an agency without me knowing.

“They called me and asked if I could model as Diana and I ended up being featured in a magazine in Holland and that’s how it started.

“There hadn’t been anything else until recently when I was asked by a national newspaper.

“I went up to Kensington, had my hair and make up done, did the shoots and it was amazing.

Mrs Coppard modelled four high street alternatives to Diana’s iconic looks including three long gowns and a black and white checked suit.

“I’ve never done anything like this in my life, I’m not a model, I’m just me so it’s surreal to see it,” she added.

With the latest series of The Crown, fresh glances from people have been coming her way.

Mrs Coppard added: “It’s quite a compliment because Diana was only 36 when she died.”

Now her children Samuel, Rachel and Simon are grown up, Mrs Coppard has taken some time out to study a full-time degree in commercial horticulture at the University of Greenwich.

She set herself the personal challenge to study the subject she has had a passion for from a young age and hopes to find a career related to her degree, while continuing to model as the princess

Emma Corrin, whose family home is now in Sevenoaks, will soon make her film debut in historical drama Misbehaviour, and in the US television drama, Pennyworth.

She previously said she is “overjoyed, over the moon and incredibly honoured” to have been cast in the role of Diana and felt the tension on the set when she emerged for filming wearing a replica of the infamous wedding dress worn by the Princess in July 1981 for the ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Emma has also appeared in ITV drama Grantchester as Esther Carter.

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