Diana [antikvár]

FOREWORD TREVOR Mcdonald, obe The sudden and tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales affected the people of Britain and the world as perhaps no other event in modern times; From the Far East to the fiirthest western point of the Americas, from northern Europe to the Antarctic, her passing was mourned by millions who had never even met her. Her death seemed to touch the chord that unites us all as people, as members of the vast and disparate human race, as partners in the great family of nations. I have come to believe that there are several reasons why this is so. Diana had become, by the time of her death, an international superstar like no other before her. Although she was no longer married to the Prince of Wales, the heir to the throne, her superstar status was underpinned by her royal connections. To all intents and purposes she was regarded by her millions of admirers as flilly royal, and touched by diat indescribable regal magic. Another reason is that she was stunningly beautiful. In an age when technology enables pictures to flatter their subject unashamedly, Diana's good looks outdid the photographer's art. As Shakespeare's Cleopatra was described, Diana's entrance into a room "beggared all description". But there was much more. In those awful, inconsolable days after her death we came to know how the Princess of Wales was viewed by the people who had come into contact with her and by the numerous charities to which she gave so freely of her time. She had obviously made a lasting impression on them. She was perceived universally as a champion of the underdog, a Princess who was concerned about those less fortunate than herself, the poor and the sick, and one who was prepared to challenge the most powerful governments in the world to secure an international ban on landmines. When she met the dispossessed and the persecuted, the victims of Aids in London, and children dying of cancer in Pakistan, she sat close to them, held their hands, touched their foreheads and their cheeks and for one brief and shining moment encouraged them to believe that they were the most cherished people in all the wide world. She managed in