Touching testament to Diana

MY BUS route to work takes me past Kensington Palace. So I have spent much of this week showing Diana pilgrims where to get off, which crossing is best and what gate to use to enter the park.

They are invariably women of a certain age, who seem rather frayed by life but are determined to pay their respects to the Princess who died 20 years ago. Their journeys and tributes to a woman they never knew personally are touching rather than mad. They bear testament to the incredible reach Diana had, and how people saw their own unhappiness reflected in her discontent.

Yet perhaps the most touching thing of all this week were the thenand-now photographs of William and Harry examining the tributes and flowers tied to the Palace gates. Diana’s boys have turned into fine young men.

How sad it is to know that she was a mother who never lived to see her sons grow up, which is what she would have wanted above all else.