戴安娜王妃的故事-第六章生命最后的日子

Chapter 6 Her Last Days

After Diana's marriage finally ended in August 1996, she was a rich woman with over 17 million pounds. But she wanted to go on working. She specially wanted to stop the use of land mines. She visited Angola and Bosnia, where there are still terrible problems with land mines after the wars there. She met people who lost legs or arms from these land mines. Not only men, but little children too. When she spoke out against the landmines, not everyone agreed with her. But Diana was still ready to speak from the heart.

She had a good summer in 1997. She visited her brother Charles in South Africa. She spent her birthday there, and enjoyed a holiday with Charles and his family without any of the usual trouble from the paparazzi. There was only one sad time in the middle of July, when she went to Italy for the funeral of her friend Gianni Versace, the famous clothes maker.

Something very special was happening in Diana's life that summer too. She had a new boyfriend. This was Dodi Al Fayed, a filmmaker, who was 42. The Al Fayeds are a Muslim family from Egypt, but they live in England. They are very rich; the famous London shop harods, and the Ritz Hotel in Paris belong to Mohammed Al Fayed, Dodi's father.

The Al Fayed family and the Spencer family were already friends. Diana first met Dodi about 10 years earlier, but they didn't become good friends until she went on holiday to France with the AI Fayed family in July 1997. Harry and William went too, and they all had a wonderful time. It was the best holiday for years, Diana said later.

And soon Diana and Dodie became more than friends, they fell in love. Tey went away on holiday again at the end of that month. But they were alone together this time. They visited Corsica and Sardinia in the Al Fayeds' private boat. The paparazzi soon knew that they were lovers.

And then, of course, they all wanted to get pictures and stories of Diana and Dodi. The man who took the first photos of their kisses sold the pictures for $1 million. On 21 August, Diana flew back to France again to start a third holiday with Dodi.

By now, they were deeply in love. He gave her presents, and it's possible that they planned to get married. Dodi was married before, and had a lot of girlfriends after that. But he was very serious about Diana.

This third holiday ended suddenly because of the paparazzi. When their boat arrived at Sardinia, the photographers ran after Dodi and Diana everywhere. They even found them at a hotel where they were staying secretly. That was enough - the lovers decided to leave at once for Paris. They arrived on Saturday, 30 August. Dodi had a small home in Paris, which they tried to use secretly.

During the afternoon, Dodi went out to get a very expensive ring which he was buying as a present for Diana. It was a ring that she would never wear. The paparazzi knew Diana and Dodi were now in Paris and were following them again. They planned to eat dinner at a restaurant in the city centre, but decided that it wasn't safe there. They went on to the Ritz, the hotel which belongs to Dodi's father. When they arrived at the Ritz, there were already about 40 paparazzi waiting for them.

At last, just after midnight, they left the hotel by the back door to go back to Dodi's house. They were trying to escape, and sent off another car from the front. But some of the paparazzi saw Diana and Dodi as they drove off in their special Mercedes car with their driver and bodyguard.

'You won't catch me!' said the driver, Henri Paul, as he drove faster and faster; so did the paparazzi, some in cars, and several on very fast bikes. There were cameras and lights everywhere, as they tried to photograph Diana's car. When the road came to the River Seine, it went underground. The car was now traveling very fast - perhaps at over 160 km an hour. It hit a wall. The crash killed Dodi and the driver at once. The bodyguard, Trevor Rees- Jones, was still alive. So was Diana - but she was very badly hurt.

It took more than an hour before they could get her out of the crashed car. They took her to hospital, where doctors tried to save her life. But it was no good. She died at about 4:00 in the morning.

Soon telephones were ringing in Britain as people heard the news and phoned to tell their friends and families. Some heard it on the television or radio at the end of a long night's work, and it seemed that it couldn't possibly be true.

At Balmoral, Prince Charles woke his sons William and Harry to tell them the terrible news. That afternoon, Charles left Scotland by plane with Diana's two sisters Sarah and Jane. They flew to Paris together to bring her body home.

During the week, newspapers, television and radio were full of Diana's sad story. People cried and left bunches of flowers for her. By the middle of the first day, there were over 1,000 bunches outside Kensington Palace. By the end of the week, it was like a sea of flowers there. With the flowers, there were cards and letters: 'To our sweet Princess - Thank you for the love you showed us all.' 'Queen of hearts' and 'Princess of Love' were words that came up again and again. 'We'll never forget you,' the letters said.

And during that week, the mystery about the car crash was growing. When Trevor Rees-Jones, the bodyguard, finally woke up in hospital, he couldn't remember the accident. We now know that the driver, Henri Paul, had too much to drink that evening - far too much.

But the paparazzi were driving too fast and too near, and the photographers' lights were too bright. Did they make it happen too? And was there a second car in the crash? Some people even thought that it was murder. This was probably just a wild story, but there was still a mystery about the crash.

Diana's funeral was on Saturday, 6 September, 1997, one week after she died. On Friday night, thousands of people went to London. They stayed out all night, waiting for the morning, when her body would travel from Kensington Palace to Westminster Abbey.

Kensington Palace Gardens were beautiful. It was a warm night, and there were flowers by every tree. People of all ages sat quietly together in little groups, remembering Diana. Her funeral, like her wedding, brought famous people together from all over the world. Some were heads of governments, and others were her friends. Many were famous names from the worlds of film and music. All the royal family was there.

Princes Charles, William and Harry walked behind Diana's body as it went into the church. Her sons gave her white flowers with a card that just said 'mummy'.

In Hyde Park, crowds of thousands watched the funeral on a big screen. Many cried as they listened to the words, and heard some of Diana's favorite music earlier that summer. Diana looked after her friend Elton John at Gianni Versace's funeral. Now he sang at her funeral. It was a song that he once wrote about the film star, Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn and Diana were both 36 when they died. Elton changed the words for Diana.

'Goodbye England's Rose,' he sang. 'She would always 'grow in our hearts'.

Then her brother, Charles, spoke about Diana. He remembered how kind and beautiful she was. 'Today is our chance to say thank you... We want you to know that life without you is very very difficult.' He was very angry with the paparazzi who gave her such a hard time. And he promised to try and help her sons in their future life.

The funeral car took Diana's body to the Spencer family home at Althrop in Northamptonshire. People threw flowers in front of the car as it went past. At first, her family planned to bring her to the local church at althrop, but then they decided against this.

Thousands of visitors could make life too difficult for the small village. So, finally they took Diana to a small island in a lake in the gardens of Althrop Park. Here her body lies in private, but once every year, visitors can come to see the place where she rests.

Diana's life is over, but her story is not. The way that she lived and died will change many things. Her life showed a new road for the Royal Family to take. She showed them a way to be nearer to the British people and to help with real problems in the modern world.

When she died, we all remembered that life can be very short. Every one of us has to do our best with the time that we have, 'it's important to show love,' said Diana. We need to remember this too.