Diana

Today marks the tenth anniversary of Diana's fatal crash. Not surprisingly, Fleet Street covers the incident while Camilla Parker Bowles decides not to attend the remembarance ceremony after public polls showed we find her attendance inappropriate (now that is different, thank you Tony Blair). It is remarkable how much media attention Diana continues to receive - and how much speculation is given to her "destiny". My opinion is that, post-divorce from Charles and The Firm, Diana would have worked for Blair somehow exporting the British culture through public channels and taking on humanitarian causes - famously she raised awareness of mines by walking through a field in Angola. She also raised the profile, and love of the otherwise stiff and left-footed Royal Family. What politician would not want her endorsement? Diana would have battled the Royal Family for her place in history, and possibly been restored to the crown via Prince William. It would have been terribly entertaining, a secret pleasure for the Brits and America, and undoubtedly would have sold many copies of Tattler and People magazine.

Sonnet and I disembarked in London from Kazakhstan the day following Diana's Paris. Unawares, I awoke Sunday to find every television station showing documentaries of her while we were greeted to the incredible outpouring which lasted visibly months after her death. Kensington Palace was covered with flowers; Tesco's super market offered remembrance books and people queued for blocks to sign; the Royal Family was forced to acknowledge the tragedy while privately despising her. The fall-out goes on and on. The strangeness of those early days took years to reconcile against the British we know. The emotional cry in 1997 was against character, to say the least, and allowed for a collective expression of grief. My young secretary at Botts & Co., who I barely knew that year, was taken to tears for England's - and her own - loss.

Photo from The Reagan Library.