Princess Diana

Early in September 1980, a group of Fleet Street paparazzi were snooping on Prince Charles as he sat fishing on a Balmoral riverbank, when a make-up mirror flashed from behind a tree. The Prince had a hidden companion - and one who rather fancied herself in the game of cat and mouse with the press. A few days later the sleuths tracked down the 19 year old Lady Diana Spencer at work in London where she was caring for children in a nursery school.

If she ever was shy, the people's princess soon gained composure, and by the time of her fairytale wedding in July 1981, Diana was easily the most photographed woman in the world, appearing on the cover of every magazine.

Her wedding dress was created by David and Elizabeth Emanuel, and the royal occasion was watched by a worldwide TV audience of over 700 million. But behind the glamorous and ever-thinner exterior lurked deep insecurities. Within weeks of Diana's arrival at Balmoral after her wedding, the psychiatrists were called in. The young princess's anxieties focused particularly on Charles' feelings for his old flame, Camilla Parker Bowles. Still, Diana dazzled the world with her dresses and her disorders, her odd compulsions and her gift for compassion. When she touched an AIDS patient, attitudes to the century's most dreaded plague were transformed overnight. The wattage of Diana's celebrity overwhelmed her dowdy royal relatives.

The Princess of Wales gave birth to her first child, William, in 1982. A second son, Henry (Harry) followed in 1984. Sadly, Diana was plagued by subsequent marital problems, extra-marital affairs and relationships and a constant battle with her eating disorders - all of which took place very squarely in the public eye thanks to the rabid media coverage she always attracted.

Following her divorce it seemed Diana was finally at peace. Freed of the burden of the Royal Family and their demands on her, she blossomed and flourished, and her popularity had never been greater. She was the goddess that Britain's royals had rejected, but though stripped of her Royal title, the people's princess kept careering onwards towards her own inspiring, self-indulgent destiny; Dodi, the landmines, The Ritz - and finally a fatal car crash in Paris.

Diana's death was a rent in the firmament. A tragedy of such unbelievable proportions that life seemed to come to a halt. Her brother compared her to a classical goddess, and at her funeral in September 1997, the whole world applauded his angry eloquence and romance. As Diana's coffin passed Buckingham Palace, the whole world saw Her Majesty the Queen bow her head.