Lest We Forget

‘IT’S that time of the year again when, on the anniversary of her death, Hello! mourns the loss of its favourite cover girl and tries to boost circulation by publishing yet more tributes to Diana, Princess of Wales.

Di was about to sign for Aston Villa when she was tragically killed

Five years after her tragic discovery that chauffeured Mercedes and Paris tunnels are not a good combination, the magazine takes a look at the ”lasting legacy” of our sorely-missed Queen of Hearts.

Royal historian and biographer Robert Lacey remembers the ”scornful” tabloid headline, ”Di’s Leg-Over”, with ”yet another set of snaps of the Princess cavorting in a bathing suit with Dodi Fayed” and ”posing provocatively on a diving board, canoodling with her boyfriend on an open deck”.

Not everyone remembers her so fondly, however. ”I thought she was going bonkers,” one respected royal correspondent recalls.

But the terrible events of August 31, 1997, altered all our opinions forever. ”From the grief and shock at the senseless death of a beautiful young woman” – so much more shocking and senseless than the death of, say, an elderly hag – ”emerged St Diana, ‘the People’s Princess’, beacon of all that was heroic and humane”.

”Death gave shape and meaning to a life that had been losing its way,” notes Mr Lacey – and how.

It’s not everyone who could make it from royal pariah to national treasure, martyr and icon in one simple step, and surely premature death was but a small price for Diana to pay for so successful a rehabilitation.

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Posted: 28th, August 2002 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink