CHAPTER ONE

The People's Princess

Diana Princess of Wales died in a car accident in Paris on 31 August

1997. Six days later, more than a million people went to London to
remember her. They came to London from England, Scotland, Wales,
Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, America, Australia, and many, many more
countries. Most of them carried flowers - there were hundreds and hundreds
of flowers. They waited in the streets all night. They talked about Diana and
remembered her. And in the morning they watched Diana's body go along
the quiet streets, and they said goodbye to her. People from all over the
world - perhaps one thousand million people - watched on TV.

Everybody was very quiet. Diana, 'The People's Princess', was dead.
But who was Diana, and why did so many people watch and remember her?
What did she do when she was alive? Why did people love her so much?
 CHAPTER TWO

Young Diana

Diana Spencer was born on 1 July 1961 at Sandringham in England.

The Queen of England has a big house in Sandringham, near Diana's first
home. Diana's mother and father were friends of the Queen. Diana had two
older sisters, so she was the third girl in the Spencer family. But her father
wanted a son, and two years later Diana's brother was born. Diana loved her
young brother. She played with him all the rime. He was always a good
friend to her.

But Diana's mother and father were not happy. When Diana was
eight years old, her mother divorced her father and went to live with a man
in Scotland. The four children stayed with their father, but they often visited
their mother. It was hundreds of kilometres from Sandringham to Scotland.
Their father put them on the train in the morning, and in the evening they
were with their mother in Scotland. On the train, Diana and her brother
talked and laughed a lot. But they were not happy about their mother and
father.

In 1975, Diana's father and his children moved to a big house called
Althorp. Diana's father was very rich, and when Diana was sixteen he
married a new wife, Raine. But Diana didn't want a new mother. She didn't
like Raine, and at first she didn't talk to her.

Diana was not good at school work. But she always liked young
children, and she tried to help them. She liked games, and swimming and
running and dancing. She was very tall, but she wanted to be a dancer.
 CHAPTER THREE

Diana meets Prince Charles

When she was sixteen, Diana went to London and worked in

schools for very young children. She loved children, and they liked her too.
And she always tried to help them, when they were unhappy.

Diana's sister Sarah was a friend of the Queen's son, Prince Charles,
and Charles sometimes visited her at Althorp. One day Diana talked to him.
'Hello,' she said. 'You were on TV when your great-uncle - Lord Louis
Mountbatten - died. You were very unhappy.'

'Yes, I was,' Charles said. 'He was a good man. I liked him very
much.'

Diana always tried to help unhappy people. She and Charles talked
for a long rime. She liked Charles, and he liked her. They laughed a lot, and
soon they were good friends.

Everybody wanted to read about Prince Charles's girlfriends, and

see pictures of them. In London, newspaper men and photographers came to
Diana's house. They took photographs of her in the street, and asked her
questions. 'Do you love Prince Charles?' they asked. 'Are you going to
marry him?' Diana didn't answer, and walked away from them.

When he was younger, Charles loved a girl called Camilla. He

wanted to marry her, but she married a man called Andrew Parker-Bowles.
Charles was not happy about this. Camilla Parker-Bowles did not stop being
his friend, but he wanted a wife. And Diana was a very nice girl.

On February 6 1981, at Windsor Castle, Charles asked Diana to be

his wife. At first Diana laughed, but then she said 'Yes.' She was nineteen
years old, and he was her first boyfriend.
 Diana married Charles in London on 29 July 1981. The streets of
London were full of people. Millions of people watched on TV all over the
world. There were pictures and stories about Diana and Charles in
newspapers and magazines.

In the magazine pictures Diana was young and beautiful. But was
she happy?
 CHAPTER FOUR

Children and Illness

At first, Diana was happy with Charles. On June 21 1982, their first
son, Prince William, was born. Diana was a good mother and loved him
very much.

But Diana and her son did not always stay at home. Because she
was a princess, she visited many countries with her husband. In spring
1983, Diana and Charles visited Australia and New Zealand. They took
Prince William with them.

Everybody in Australia wanted to see Diana. She was on TV and in

the newspapers, and the streets were always lull of people. But sometimes
this was difficult for Prince Charles. Everyone wanted to see Diana and
give her flowers, but no one wanted to see him. 'It doesn't matter,' he
laughed. 'I'm a man, I'm not very important. I'm here to carry the flowers for
my wife.' But he wasn't very happy about this.

It was difficult fur Diana, too. Photographers always followed her,

and her photograph was in every magazine. The photographers wanted new
photographs every day. 'Why don't they stop?' she asked. 'I need to be alone
sometimes.' But the photographers never stopped.

They followed her all the rime, day and night.

In the photographs she was always a beautiful, happy, young

mother. But that wasn't always true. Diana was often unhappy and ill. She
was unhappy about her husband, Charles, and his old girlfriend, Camilla
Parker-Bowles. Charles often talked to Camilla on the telephone, and
sometimes he visited her. Diana was angry about this, and she was unhappy,
too. She didn't have many friends in Buckingham Palace. And because she
was unhappy, she began to be ill.
 Diana's illness was called bulimia. She liked to eat a lot. But after
eating, she was usually ill. She was often hungry, and she wanted to eat. But
then she was nearly always ill, so she didn't get fat.

She was unhappy and afraid, too. Sometimes she wanted to die. She
needed love and help. But Charles didn't understand her. He was angry and
unhappy about her bulimia, and he didn't know how to help. But, very
often, he went to see Camilla.
 CHAPTER FIVE

Divorce

Diana and Charles's second son, Harry, was born on 15 September

1984. By this time, Diana was tired of Charles, because he didn't understand
her. And she was angry, too, because of his girlfriend, Camilla. 'There are
three people in this marriage,' she once said. 'And that is no good?

Diana stayed with Charles for eight more years, because of their
children. They worked a lot, but they did different things. In 1992, they
visited India. One day, Charles went to meet some important people. Diana
didn't go with him; she visited a famous Indian temple, the Taj Mahal. The
Taj Mahal is a temple to love; husbands and wives often go there because
they are in love. But Diana went there alone, without her husband.
Hundreds of photographers took pictures of her, alone in front of the Taj
Mahal.

All the newspapers and magazines talked about Diana and Charles.
'They are unhappy,' they said. 'He doesn't love her, and she doesn't love
him? Some of the newspaper people liked Charles, and some liked Diana.
But every day, the photographers followed them. And the newspapers
always asked questions. 'Has Diana got a man friend?' they asked. 'Does
Charles love Camilla?'

Charles and Diana were more and more unhappy.

After 1992, Diana stopped living with Charles, and four years later,
in 1996, she divorced him. So then she was a mother with two children, but
no husband. She lived in a big house in London, Kensington Palace.

Diana didn't love Charles, but of course she loved her children.
Charles loved them too. Halt of the lime William and Harry lived with
Diana, and half of the time they lived with Charles. Diana was unhappy
when her mother and father were divorced, and she remembered that now.
She played with her children a lot, and talked to them all the time. She tried
to be a good mother. It was the most important thing in the world to her.

But everything was difficult for them, because of the photographers.

The photographers were always there, every day, all the time. Diana could
never forget them.
 CHAPTER SIX

The most beautiful Woman in the World

Diana hated many of the photographers, but she liked some of them
too. The newspaper people and the photographers were very important for
Diana, Sometimes they helped her, sometimes she was angry with them.
Bur she could not live without them.

When she was a young girl she was not very beautiful. She was tall,
and she was sometimes fat, too, because she liked eating. She was an
ordinary, nice girl. Of course she wanted to look nice, but she did not think
that she was very beautiful. There are millions of more beautiful girls all
over the world.

But one day, Diana married a Prince. And because she married a
Prince, everybody wanted photographs of her. Her photograph was in
newspapers and magazines every day. All over the world, people talked
about her clothes and her face and her body. And so, of course, Diana began
to think about these things too.

She liked clothes, and she was very rich. Many people made
exciting clothes for her. Because she had beautiful clothes, she wanted a
beautiful body too. Diana always liked swimming and dancing, but now she
worked a lot. Every day she went swimming or dancing or running, and
soon her body was healthy and beautiful. This helped with her bulimia, too.
She stopped feeling ill; she began to feel healthy and happy.

And because she was healthy and happy, she was much more
beautiful. She had exciting, expensive clothes, and a beautiful body, coo.
More and more newspapers and magazines wanted photographs of this
beautiful princess. There were pictures of Diana in every country in the
world. Everybody wanted to see them.

One day a French magazine asked: 'Who is the most beautiful

woman in the world?'
 It wasn't a difficult question. The answer was easy. The most
beautiful woman in the world was Diana, of course. Diana, Princess of
Wales.

And more and more photographers followed her, all the time.
 CHAPTER SEVEN

Helping People

Diana was rich and beautiful. She had many rich and famous
friends. But she liked ordinary people, too. And ordinary people liked her.

When she was young she always loved children, and wanted to help
them. So now she worked with many charities to help children in hospital.
She worked with one important charity at Great Ormond Street Children's
Hospital, in London.

The Queen and Prince Charles often visit hospitals and help
charities. They ask people to give money to the hospitals and charities.
People listen to them because (hey are famous. Diana was famous and
beautiful, too. So a lot of people started to give money to Diana's charities.

But when Diana visited children in hospital, she wanted to give

them more than money. She wanted to give them love. She sat on their beds
and talked to them. She listened to them. Sometimes she hugged them with
her arms. She cried to make them happy. And the photographers took
pictures of her with the children.

In 1989, she visited a hospital for people with AIDS. People with
AIDS are often very ill; many of them die, very slowly. At that time most
people didn't understand AIDS. They didn't like people with AIDS, and
they were afraid to touch them.

When Diana visited the AIDS hospital, she wasn't afraid. She sat on
a bed next to a man with AIDS. Then she took his hand. She talked to him
for a long time, and listened to him too. The people with AIDS loved her.
She made them very happy.

'It's OK to touch people with AIDS,' she said. 'You can't get AIDS
from that. These people are ill, and they need our love. So we must touch
them, and talk to them, and listen to them, too.'
 There were pictures of Diana and the people with AIDS on TV, and
in all the newspapers. People loved her because of the photographs. And
Diana was happy about these photographs, too. Sometimes, it was good to
have photographers.
 CHAPTER EIGHT

Lepers and Landmines

Diana helped many charities. And she always talked co ordinary

people and listened to them. Sometimes she hugged them, too. People
wanted to meet her because she was famous and rich and beautiful. But
they loved her because she was ordinary, like them. She was an ordinary
young mother. She took their hands and hugged their children. Sometimes
she sat on their beds and laughed with them like a young schoolgirl.

In Africa she visited hospitals for lepers. Lepers are very ill, and
many people are afraid of them. But Diana wasn't afraid. She touched the
lepers and calked to them. 'They are ordinary people, coo,' she said. 'They
need help and love.'

In Calcutta she visited Mother Teresa's hospital for children. Many

of these children have no home and no mother or father. Diana sat down
and talked to them, too. People loved her because of this.

And when Diana visited the hospitals, the photographers took

photographs for the newspapers and magazines. So people learned about the
hospitals and began to give money to them.

In 1997, Diana learned about landmines. Landmines arc a cheap and

easy weapon, and people use them all over the world. You put them under
the ground, and when people walk on them - sometimes years later - they
explode. Sometimes people die, but more often they lose a foot, or a leg.
Very often, young children stand on landmines when they are playing.

Diana wanted to help these people, and she wanted to stop

landmines, too. First she went to Angola, then she went to Bosnia. She
visited people and listened to them. 'People must stop making these
landmines,' she said. 'There is nothing good about them. We don't need bad
things like this in the world.'
 And as usual, the photographers and TV cameramen took
photographs of her, and the TV and newspaper people talked about her. All
over the world, people began to say: 'We don't need landmines. We must
stop this.'

People listened to Diana because she was beautiful and famous. And
so she helped people.
 CHAPTER NINE

The Accident

But many of the photographers were not interested in landmines.

They were interested in Diana's men friends. After Bosnia, Diana went to
the Mediterranean. She stayed with a rich man called Dodi al Fayed. They
were very happy, but photographers followed them all the time. In
September 1997 Diana and Dodi went to Paris. First they went to the Ritz
Hotel to eat. The photographers waited for them in the street.

At midnight, Diana and Dodi got into a black Mercedes car; they
wanted to go to Dodi's house. Two of Dodi's men were with them. Some
photographers followed them, and the driver of the car wanted to get away
from them. But he went very fast - perhaps a hundred and sixty kilometres
an hour - and the black Mercedes had a bad accident. Dodi and the driver,
Henri Paul, died in the car. Diana died two hours later in hospital.

A week later, more than a million people came to London to

remember Diana. Nearly all of them carried flowers. They put thousands of
flowers in front of Diana's home, Kensington Palace. Diana's brother and
her two sons, William and Harry, followed Diana's body along the streets of
London. Prince Charles and the Queen's husband, Prince Philip, walked
with them. Hundreds of charity workers followed behind them. The Queen
watched them go.

People watched and cried. They listened to Elton John's song

'Goodbye England's Rose'. Then Diana's brother talked about his sister.
'Diana helped many people,' he said. 'She helped people with no homes, and
people with no legs because of landmines. She helped lepers and people
with AIDS. She liked to help unhappy people, because she was often
unhappy too.'

Diana's brother was angry with the photographers. 'They always

followed her,' he said. 'She was never alone. And the newspapers often said
bad things about her, too. I don't know why. Perhaps they are afraid of good
people.'

Diana's body is on an island in the middle of a lake near Althorp

House. Her brother docs not want hundreds of people to visit her there, or
take photographs. She can sleep quietly there.

But sometimes her brother and her sons, William and Harry, come to
visit her.

- THE END -

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