Princess Diana mania has officially kicked into overdrive.
With the 20-year anniversary of her tragic death just a matter of days away, falling on Thursday, August 31st, now more than ever the 36-year-old is being celebrated and remembered.
Over the weekend, BBC reporter Jonathan Mayo retraced the harrowing aftermath, minute by minute, of Princess Diana’s death for the Daily Mail.
Here are the most heartbreaking revelations…
Her sons were always with her
According to Mayo, as Princess Diana’s lifeless body lay in the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris awaiting collection from her ex-husband Prince Charles, the nurses retrieved a photo of her sons Prince William and Prince Harry from her purse and placed it in her hands.
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Thousands of miles away in Balmoral, her boys were waking up to the horrific news their mother was dead.
In London, Diana’s butler Paul Burrell was tasked with the grim job of having to select an outfit from Kensington Palace to take to Paris for Diana to wear on the sombre journey home.
A photo of her sons was found in her handbag and placed in her hands by the nurses.
“He picks up a set of rosary beads given to the Princess by Mother Teresa, which is draped over a small statue of the Virgin Mary, and puts them in his pocket. Burrell then collects some of Diana’s make-up and places it in a leather Gladstone bag with a gold D on the side,” Mayo writes.
Paul selected a woollen black three-quarter cocktail dress and a pair of black shoes for his late boss.
When Paul arrives to the hospital, he asks the nurses to place the sacred rosary beads in Diana’s spare hand – the other is holding the photo of her beloved boys.
In the other hand, Diana clung to rosary beads given to her by Mother Teresa.
A teary Prince Charles gives his final goodbye
After travelling from London to Paris with Princess Diana’s two sisters, Lady Sarah McCorquodale and Lady Jane Fellowes, to retrieve her body, a weeping Prince Charles reportedly stood by Diana’s bedside and bowed his head in prayer before asking to be left alone with the mother of his two children, Mayo claims.
“He has been crying and looks a changed man,” the reports notes of a heartbroken Charles.
When the hospital spokesperson Thierry Meresse offers that Charles can leave the hospital via a helicopter from the rooftop, he is resolute in his answer.
“No, she arrived by car, so she will leave by car. There are people who love her waiting outside,” he says.
Charles and Diana’s two sisters flew to Paris to retrieve her body.
But the heir to the throne becomes flustered when he realises Diana is missing one of her earrings – which has fallen out in the wrecked car.
“She can’t go without her second earring,” he protests.
A royal escort of cars takes Diana to the airport, to be brought home to England on the Royal Squadron Aircraft of the RAF.
The future King of England wept by his ex-wife’s bedside.
One last tribute from William and Harry
Meanwhile in a new documentary called Diana: The Day Britain Cried, which is narrated by Kate Winslet, royal florist Lisa Webb reveals the touching way a then-15-year-old Prince William and 12-year-old Prince Harry helped farewell their mother.
The enormous arrangement of white roses and lilies which sat on top of Diana’s coffin, along with a handwritten note which was simply addressed to “Mummy”, is an image forever linked to Diana’s death.
And it was the boys’ vision.
“The flowers were chosen by the princes,” Lisa Webb tells the documentary.
“The flowers were chosen by the princes,” royal florist Lisa Webb says.
They also included a hand-written letter addressed to their “Mummy.”
