The last princess

This was written on the occasion of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Now the pain's lessened I publish it here as a personal memorial.

I've turned off the radio and the TV. It seems that every politician, every expert, every celebrity is queuing at the cameras and the microphones to react to the death of Princess Diana. We are besieged by opinion, buried under analysis, showered with prayers, and reduced to tears by carefully chosen mournful music. We are given everything, in fact, but silence.

If ever silence was needed at sad news this is that moment.

But silence is about the last thing we are going to get. At this moment the press rooms are humming, libraries are being searched, keyboards clattering and Dictaphones whirring. A shower of souvenir issues, memorial mementoes and pictorial tributes will descend upon us. And we all know that, somewhere in Hollywood, a project team is being brought together to rush out another mini-series. I can't bear to think what it may be called.

The older I get the more angry my reaction to the news of the death of someone younger becomes. And this time my anger is profound. I'm angry at every aspect of this senseless, wasteful death, angry at blind chance, angry at those who contributed to it, and angry at myself for listening to and, indeed, participating in the wave of cynicism that built up around this poor woman. Who hasn't repeated or, worse, coined, some clever, cynical words about the Princess? I am bitterly, angrily ashamed to be among that number. Never again.

For if ever cynicism poisoned the world view of an individual, it was so of Princess Di. Everything, public or private, that she did or said was pounced on by the sour and rancid vultures of disbelief. When she hugged a sick baby, held the hand of a man dying from AIDS, and wept at the suffering of a child torn apart by a land mine, she was accused of seeking publicity. When she was joyful, she was envied. When she was sad, she was pilloried.

How we shall come to view this tragedy in the future I don't know. I doubt that, in the long term, we shall acquit ourselves with much honour or any dignity.

It would be nice if sanity and reason were to return and that, when we bury Diana, we could bury our cynicism and our cruelty in a different and fiercely angry ceremony. It would be nice. But it won't happen.

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