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charity work became her inspiration
and often a lifeline to normality, too.
“She was drawn to the vulnerable, the
weak and the unrecognised,” says her
biographer Sarah Bradford. “It touched
a personal chord with her, linking
with the rejection and marginalisation
she felt she herself was suffering.”
“Accompanying her to a children’s
hospice or the bedside of a dying
refugee was to witness a woman who
never let her emotions take charge- but who never entirely masked them
either,” recalls Patrick Jephson. That
was the key to Diana’s success.
One of the most defining images of
her much-photographed life came in
April 1987, when she opened the first
HIV/AIDS ward in Britain and shook
the hand of an AIDS sufferer. World
opinion changed overnight, according
to the photographer who took the
shot, Arthur Edwards, “People were
amazed to discover this wasn’t a
disease you ran away from; it was
perfectly safe”.
Diana herself explained: “HIV does
not make people dangerous to know.
You can shake their hands and give
them a hug – heaven knows they
need it.”
She had started the Palace revolution.
Initial reaction from diehard courtiers
to the pictures was one of outright
disapproval – the Princess appeared
too human, too compassionate –
although perhaps their concerns were
that the other royals might look less
sympathetic by comparison. Or maybe
it was just the nature of HIV/AIDS
which they disliked. Whatever it was,
soon their ideas would be swept away
by the winds of change as Diana
threw back the shutters and let in
daylight to the stuffy royal house.
When she died, her friend, Sir Elton
John, who rewrote his hitCandle In
The Windto perform at her funeral,
donated the royalties to The Diana,
Princess of Wales Memorial Fund
in honour of the AIDS work she had
done. The sum he gave was £38 million
(A$64 million) – one of the biggest
charitable donations ever in the UK- but just a drop in the ocean of funds
she raised over her lifetime.
In 1989, she performed the same
miracle of transformation, travelling
to Indonesia to visit leprosy patients
in Jakarta. Peter Waddup, National
Director of The Leprosy Mission
toldThe Weekly, “Diana had an
astonishing impact on the work we
did when she was our patron and we
were devastated by her death. Leprosy
was, and still is, a highly stigmatised
disease and Diana’s actions were
transforming in tackling the stigma.
She held hands with people affected
by leprosy when she made visits to
our hospitals in India, Nepal and
Zimbabwe, and spent time with every
patient in turn. I doubt any individual
will have such an impact again.”
Just as memorable an image is
of Diana walking across a field sown
with landmines. Today, her impact
on world peace and safety is a strong
as the day she died, according to
MajorGeneral James Cowan, head of
landmineclearance organisation The
HALO Trust. “The Anti-Personnel
Mine Ban Treaty, signed in Ottawa
20 years ago, was one of the great
moral statements of the 20th century,”
he toldThe Weekly. “Princess Diana
was an inspirational figure in this
effort – her visit to a minefield in
Angola in 1997 catalysed the world’s
attention – and that continues still.
“Her intervention was a major
contribution to the Mine Ban Treaty.”
The work goes on. In April this
year, Prince Harry, together with an
unprecedented collection of ministers,
diplomats and philanthropists, met
at Kensington Palace to remember her
contribution and celebrate 20 years of
humanitarian anti-mine action.»OPPOSITE: Diana with William and Harry in 1989. ABOVE, FROM LEFT: Diana in tears with a patient at a children’s cancer hospital
in Pakistan in 1996; William gives his son, George, a hug while on the royal tour of Canada in 2016; Harry cuddles a child at a centre
for children with disabilities run by the charity he co-founded, Sentebale, in Lesotho, in 2014.