Diana is still sorely missed, 20 years on
TRIBUTES: FLOWERS, PHOTOS AT LONDON RESIDENCE
Shy, teenage aristocrat who suddenly became the world’s most famous woman.
Yesterday, candles and flowers were already building up at the gates of Princess Diana’s former London residence to mark 20 years since her death, which unleashed an unprecedented outpouring of grief in Britain.
“She was this ray of light in a fairly grey world,” Prince William said of his mother Diana, princess of Wales, whose death two decades ago today shocked the world.
“I still feel that love, I still feel that warmth 20 years on,” her eldest son said in a new documentary marking the anniversary.
“If I can be even a fraction of what she was, I’ll be proud.”
The life of Diana – a shy, teenage aristocrat who suddenly became the world’s most famous woman – and her tragic death at 36 still captivates millions across the globe.
Two decades on, her sons William and Prince Harry only now feel able to talk publicly about her death, a seismic event which continues to resonate in the monarchy and British society.
Diana died in a car crash in Paris in the early hours of August 31, 1997, along with Dodi Fayed, her wealthy Egyptian film producer boyfriend of two months, and a drink-impaired, speeding driver Henri Paul, who was trying to evade paparazzi.
The 10th anniversary of her death was marked with a memorial service and a charity concert at Wembley Stadium in London.
The passing of another decade has allowed for greater perspective, and this anniversary has
been more reflective, marked by William, 35, and Harry, 32, opening up about their mother’s life, and death.
No public events are planned for today, but yesterday the brothers walked around the garden which was specially created in her memory at Kensington Palace, her London home.
William and Harry have spoken of struggling to comprehend the “alien” tide of public mourning from people who did not know their mother, at a time when they, at the tender ages of 15 and 12, could not process their loss.
William has said he tells his children, Prince George, four, and Princess Charlotte, two, about the Granny Diana they will never meet.
Perhaps her greatest legacy is her two sons. “When you have something so traumatic as the death of your mother when you’re 15, it will either make or break you,” William said in the Diana, 7 Days BBC documentary. “And I wouldn’t let it break me. I wanted it to make me. “I wanted her to be proud of the person I would become.” Harry added: “We will miss our mother and I wonder every single day what it would be like having her around.” –