Ingrid SEWARD

I got to know Diana as a journalist during the Eighties, while covering royal tours. Early on, I noticed the most extraordinary thing about her was her habit of telling people she hardly knew the most intimate secrets about her life. I think she enjoyed seeing what effect it would have on them. It was a clever ploy as it made you feel a closeness to her that didn’t necessarily exist.

When I watched her explosive interview with Martin Bashir, I realised she was doing what I’d seen her do before: sharing intimate secrets with someone she didn’t really know. Only this time, those secrets were on national television.

It’s hard to overestimate how shocking it was for her to speak so candidly about her marriage. That was not an accepted or normal way to behave back then, especially not for royals.

It wasn’t until about 18 months

later, when

I visited Diana at Kensington Palace, that we discussed it. I was there for what she described as a “girlie chat”. But the subject of Panorama came up, and despite the fallout – she had unintentionally precipitated her divorce from Prince Charles – she remained defiant.

She told me she regretted talking about James Hewitt because she thought it had hurt her sons. But she was glad she had spoken about her bulimia, she added, because she’d received a flood of letters from other people with eating disorders and felt it had done some good. But she did not regret the interview as a whole. She had previously lost a great deal of public support because of her affairs with rugby player Will Carling and art dealer Oliver Hoare – both married. She wanted the world to see who she really was: someone who could help others. As far as I unde understand it, sh she never inten intended to talk a about her p personal life. I It was going to be a serious interview about her charity work.

Bashir drew her out, and by famously stating “there were three of us in this marriage”, she won enormous sympathy.

But I felt she was wrong to have criticised Charles openly; I feared the effects would be ruinous. Watching the interview, I’d been utterly astounded by her candour. I knew that her airing of royal dirty linen in public would backfire.

I received a call from Newsnight immediately after the interview aired, asking me to discuss it. But I just couldn’t do it, because I thought Diana had lost it. I felt horrified by what I’d seen.

I think, in retrospect she’d set out to win back her reputation, as she was terrified the Royal family would take her boys away. But she did so in a way that looked calculated.

Diana was highly vulnerable at that time and, I think, fairly desperate. She was also paranoid. Not long before her death, she told me that she still felt incredibly nervous about going out and meeting people, worried they’d have preconceived ideas about her based on the press.

She’d set out to win back the public’s approval but had ended up losing their respect.

Diana was highly vulnerable at that time and, I think, fairly desperate

Ingrid Seward is author of ‘Prince Philip Revealed: A Man of His Century’, published by Simon & Schuster

Regrets: Diana presenting Major James Hewitt with a cup in 1991, watched by Prince William