‘The Diana I KNEW'

Following the unveiling of Diana’s statue on what would have been her 60th birthday, royal biographer Jennie Bond shares stories of their time together

- JENNIE BOND

For me, as I’m sure for many others, it seems almost impossible to imagine Diana, Princess of Wales, at the age of 60. Her image remains frozen in time, an elegant, glamorous 36-year-old global icon.

She was someone who dominated my life for more than a decade. As the BBC’s royal correspondent, I was required to report on every event in her very busy life. I had a daughter, born at the start of the 90s: the decade that was consumed by the so-called ‘War of the Waleses’, as the marriage of Charles and Diana so publicly collapsed. But Diana’s dramas took precedence over motherhood and, all too frequently, I simply had to drop everything – including my child – and race to the BBC.

Complicated character

Diana was someone I got to know quite well, and it seemed at times that we might be the best of friends. I would sit in her drawing room at Kensington Palace, with a cup of coffee or a glass of iced water served by her butler Paul Burrell, and we would chat and laugh for an hour or two. We talked about everything from children and work to love, marriage and divorce.

Once she gave me a gift of some tights, just because I said I admired her legs.

A day or two after our girly chats, we might meet at an event and I never knew what to expect. Sometimes she would wave or say hello, sometimes she’d look straight through me as if I didn’t exist.

She was a complicated character and there is no simple way to sum her up.