Diana Princess Of Wales What It Was Like To Cover Her Death

The princess was just 36 when the limousine carrying her and her lover Dodi al-Fayed crashed into the tunnel under the bridge as she sped away from photographers chasing her on motorbikes.
The phone rang around two o’clock in the morning.  I was on a family vacation in Ottawa.  Our daughter Caitlin was the first to reach it.  He was 15 then.
“Hello. This is CBC calling from Toronto. Can I speak to Paul, please?”
“You don’t know it’s midnight,” Caitlin said, full of teenage squeamishness.
“Princess Diana just died.  Can I speak to Paul?’
He woke me up.
It was really a story of two cities, Paris and London, historically united by a tragedy so massive, so deafening, that rattles the world today with as much tension, intrigue and speculation as it did 25 years ago.
We are caught in a Diana time machine.  Her modest Ford Escort, which she drove before marrying Prince Charles, sold at auction this week for US$850,000.
“The woman who doesn’t die,” as an American friend told me this week.
The CBC wanted to put me on a supersonic Concorde flight from New York.  The kitchen phone was warm in my hands as they tried to find details, running out of time and connections.  We returned to Paris that evening on a ticket that had been booked weeks in advance.  I remember thinking, “I’ve got to sleep” because I knew I wasn’t going to get any pain for a while.
Paris was churning and seething in a convulsion of mistrust, guilt and conspiracy.  Eye-opening rumors and headlines.  For reporters, frantically running around looking for possible leads, it felt like they were in a version of the same high-speed chase that killed Diana.
Who was driving the car?  Who were the paparazzi chasing her in the tunnel?  It was wild and almost hysterical.  There were unfounded rumors that she was pregnant with Dodi Fayed’s child.  The royal family killed her before she married a Muslim.
Details began to leak that driver Henri Paul was drunk and traces of prescription drugs had been found in his blood.  He was the deputy head of security at the Hôtel Ritz, where Diana and Fayette were staying.
Security cameras captured the pair standing at the back entrance, waiting for Paul to whisk them away in his Mercedes-Benz W140 S-Class.  A decoy vehicle left the front of the hotel where 30 reporters and photographers were waiting.
We rushed to Paul’s apartment in Paris, took video from outside, tried to talk to his neighbors, to people in the bar next door who can confirm that he drank a lot.  Deep research.  It was useless.
We rented a Mercedes and somehow strapped a camera to it and drove through the Pont de l’Alma tunnel at speed.  Gimmicky, but everyone did it.
And we subjected the crowd above the tunnel, at all hours of the day and night, to a barrage of cameras and microphones, invading the very real sense of people’s grief.  A statue that had nothing to do with Diana was suddenly turned into a shrine, buried with flowers and covered with messages of love and loss.
In the distance was the Eiffel Tower and unseen below, the thirteenth pillar of the tunnel, which the Mercedes hit at an estimated speed of 105 km/h.  We drove by a few times, trying to see and film anything that looked like evidence of a fatal crash.
The shock that consumed Paris shifted to the mourning and sadness that engulfed London and the whole of the United Kingdom.  The images of two young princes walking behind their mother’s coffin are indelible, conveying a sense of pure sadness, at least to me, as the father of a teenager at the time.  It was something we could all relate to – even a royal princess can be killed in a car accident.
I think the only other image that will hold up in the same way is that of the Queen, sitting alone, dressed in black and wearing a face mask, as she buried her husband Philip during the pandemic.
Diana naturally became the people’s princess, mother of a future king, still an object of fascination and worship.  And people are returning to this tunnel in Paris, drawn by the tragedy that unfolded there 25 years ago on the last day of August.

title: “Diana Princess Of Wales What It Was Like To Cover Her Death Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-15” author: “Shirley Cook”

The princess was just 36 when the limousine carrying her and her lover Dodi al-Fayed crashed into the tunnel under the bridge as she sped away from photographers chasing her on motorbikes.
The phone rang around two o’clock in the morning.  I was on a family vacation in Ottawa.  Our daughter Caitlin was the first to reach it.  He was 15 then.
“Hello. This is CBC calling from Toronto. Can I speak to Paul, please?”
“You don’t know it’s midnight,” Caitlin said, full of teenage squeamishness.
“Princess Diana just died.  Can I speak to Paul?’
He woke me up.
It was really a story of two cities, Paris and London, historically united by a tragedy so massive, so deafening, that rattles the world today with as much tension, intrigue and speculation as it did 25 years ago.
We are caught in a Diana time machine.  Her modest Ford Escort, which she drove before marrying Prince Charles, sold at auction this week for US$850,000.
“The woman who doesn’t die,” as an American friend told me this week.
The CBC wanted to put me on a supersonic Concorde flight from New York.  The kitchen phone was warm in my hands as they tried to find details, running out of time and connections.  We returned to Paris that evening on a ticket that had been booked weeks in advance.  I remember thinking, “I’ve got to sleep” because I knew I wasn’t going to get any pain for a while.
Paris was churning and seething in a convulsion of mistrust, guilt and conspiracy.  Eye-opening rumors and headlines.  For reporters, frantically running around looking for possible leads, it felt like they were in a version of the same high-speed chase that killed Diana.
Who was driving the car?  Who were the paparazzi chasing her in the tunnel?  It was wild and almost hysterical.  There were unfounded rumors that she was pregnant with Dodi Fayed’s child.  The royal family killed her before she married a Muslim.
Details began to leak that driver Henri Paul was drunk and traces of prescription drugs had been found in his blood.  He was the deputy head of security at the Hôtel Ritz, where Diana and Fayette were staying.
Security cameras captured the pair standing at the back entrance, waiting for Paul to whisk them away in his Mercedes-Benz W140 S-Class.  A decoy vehicle left the front of the hotel where 30 reporters and photographers were waiting.
We rushed to Paul’s apartment in Paris, took video from outside, tried to talk to his neighbors, to people in the bar next door who can confirm that he drank a lot.  Deep research.  It was useless.
We rented a Mercedes and somehow strapped a camera to it and drove through the Pont de l’Alma tunnel at speed.  Gimmicky, but everyone did it.
And we subjected the crowd above the tunnel, at all hours of the day and night, to a barrage of cameras and microphones, invading the very real sense of people’s grief.  A statue that had nothing to do with Diana was suddenly turned into a shrine, buried with flowers and covered with messages of love and loss.
In the distance was the Eiffel Tower and unseen below, the thirteenth pillar of the tunnel, which the Mercedes hit at an estimated speed of 105 km/h.  We drove by a few times, trying to see and film anything that looked like evidence of a fatal crash.
The shock that consumed Paris shifted to the mourning and sadness that engulfed London and the whole of the United Kingdom.  The images of two young princes walking behind their mother’s coffin are indelible, conveying a sense of pure sadness, at least to me, as the father of a teenager at the time.  It was something we could all relate to – even a royal princess can be killed in a car accident.
I think the only other image that will hold up in the same way is that of the Queen, sitting alone, dressed in black and wearing a face mask, as she buried her husband Philip during the pandemic.
Diana naturally became the people’s princess, mother of a future king, still an object of fascination and worship.  And people are returning to this tunnel in Paris, drawn by the tragedy that unfolded there 25 years ago on the last day of August.

title: “Diana Princess Of Wales What It Was Like To Cover Her Death Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-03” author: “James Schultz”

The princess was just 36 when the limousine carrying her and her lover Dodi al-Fayed crashed into the tunnel under the bridge as she sped away from photographers chasing her on motorbikes.
The phone rang around two o’clock in the morning.  I was on a family vacation in Ottawa.  Our daughter Caitlin was the first to reach it.  He was 15 then.
“Hello. This is CBC calling from Toronto. Can I speak to Paul, please?”
“You don’t know it’s midnight,” Caitlin said, full of teenage squeamishness.
“Princess Diana just died.  Can I speak to Paul?’
He woke me up.
It was really a story of two cities, Paris and London, historically united by a tragedy so massive, so deafening, that rattles the world today with as much tension, intrigue and speculation as it did 25 years ago.
We are caught in a Diana time machine.  Her modest Ford Escort, which she drove before marrying Prince Charles, sold at auction this week for US$850,000.
“The woman who doesn’t die,” as an American friend told me this week.
The CBC wanted to put me on a supersonic Concorde flight from New York.  The kitchen phone was warm in my hands as they tried to find details, running out of time and connections.  We returned to Paris that evening on a ticket that had been booked weeks in advance.  I remember thinking, “I’ve got to sleep” because I knew I wasn’t going to get any pain for a while.
Paris was churning and seething in a convulsion of mistrust, guilt and conspiracy.  Eye-opening rumors and headlines.  For reporters, frantically running around looking for possible leads, it felt like they were in a version of the same high-speed chase that killed Diana.
Who was driving the car?  Who were the paparazzi chasing her in the tunnel?  It was wild and almost hysterical.  There were unfounded rumors that she was pregnant with Dodi Fayed’s child.  The royal family killed her before she married a Muslim.
Details began to leak that driver Henri Paul was drunk and traces of prescription drugs had been found in his blood.  He was the deputy head of security at the Hôtel Ritz, where Diana and Fayette were staying.
Security cameras captured the pair standing at the back entrance, waiting for Paul to whisk them away in his Mercedes-Benz W140 S-Class.  A decoy vehicle left the front of the hotel where 30 reporters and photographers were waiting.
We rushed to Paul’s apartment in Paris, took video from outside, tried to talk to his neighbors, to people in the bar next door who can confirm that he drank a lot.  Deep research.  It was useless.
We rented a Mercedes and somehow strapped a camera to it and drove through the Pont de l’Alma tunnel at speed.  Gimmicky, but everyone did it.
And we subjected the crowd above the tunnel, at all hours of the day and night, to a barrage of cameras and microphones, invading the very real sense of people’s grief.  A statue that had nothing to do with Diana was suddenly turned into a shrine, buried with flowers and covered with messages of love and loss.
In the distance was the Eiffel Tower and unseen below, the thirteenth pillar of the tunnel, which the Mercedes hit at an estimated speed of 105 km/h.  We drove by a few times, trying to see and film anything that looked like evidence of a fatal crash.
The shock that consumed Paris shifted to the mourning and sadness that engulfed London and the whole of the United Kingdom.  The images of two young princes walking behind their mother’s coffin are indelible, conveying a sense of pure sadness, at least to me, as the father of a teenager at the time.  It was something we could all relate to – even a royal princess can be killed in a car accident.
I think the only other image that will hold up in the same way is that of the Queen, sitting alone, dressed in black and wearing a face mask, as she buried her husband Philip during the pandemic.
Diana naturally became the people’s princess, mother of a future king, still an object of fascination and worship.  And people are returning to this tunnel in Paris, drawn by the tragedy that unfolded there 25 years ago on the last day of August.

title: “Diana Princess Of Wales What It Was Like To Cover Her Death Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-01” author: “Charles Buchanon”

The princess was just 36 when the limousine carrying her and her lover Dodi al-Fayed crashed into the tunnel under the bridge as she sped away from photographers chasing her on motorbikes.
The phone rang around two o’clock in the morning.  I was on a family vacation in Ottawa.  Our daughter Caitlin was the first to reach it.  He was 15 then.
“Hello. This is CBC calling from Toronto. Can I speak to Paul, please?”
“You don’t know it’s midnight,” Caitlin said, full of teenage squeamishness.
“Princess Diana just died.  Can I speak to Paul?’
He woke me up.
It was really a story of two cities, Paris and London, historically united by a tragedy so massive, so deafening, that rattles the world today with as much tension, intrigue and speculation as it did 25 years ago.
We are caught in a Diana time machine.  Her modest Ford Escort, which she drove before marrying Prince Charles, sold at auction this week for US$850,000.
“The woman who doesn’t die,” as an American friend told me this week.
The CBC wanted to put me on a supersonic Concorde flight from New York.  The kitchen phone was warm in my hands as they tried to find details, running out of time and connections.  We returned to Paris that evening on a ticket that had been booked weeks in advance.  I remember thinking, “I’ve got to sleep” because I knew I wasn’t going to get any pain for a while.
Paris was churning and seething in a convulsion of mistrust, guilt and conspiracy.  Eye-opening rumors and headlines.  For reporters, frantically running around looking for possible leads, it felt like they were in a version of the same high-speed chase that killed Diana.
Who was driving the car?  Who were the paparazzi chasing her in the tunnel?  It was wild and almost hysterical.  There were unfounded rumors that she was pregnant with Dodi Fayed’s child.  The royal family killed her before she married a Muslim.
Details began to leak that driver Henri Paul was drunk and traces of prescription drugs had been found in his blood.  He was the deputy head of security at the Hôtel Ritz, where Diana and Fayette were staying.
Security cameras captured the pair standing at the back entrance, waiting for Paul to whisk them away in his Mercedes-Benz W140 S-Class.  A decoy vehicle left the front of the hotel where 30 reporters and photographers were waiting.
We rushed to Paul’s apartment in Paris, took video from outside, tried to talk to his neighbors, to people in the bar next door who can confirm that he drank a lot.  Deep research.  It was useless.
We rented a Mercedes and somehow strapped a camera to it and drove through the Pont de l’Alma tunnel at speed.  Gimmicky, but everyone did it.
And we subjected the crowd above the tunnel, at all hours of the day and night, to a barrage of cameras and microphones, invading the very real sense of people’s grief.  A statue that had nothing to do with Diana was suddenly turned into a shrine, buried with flowers and covered with messages of love and loss.
In the distance was the Eiffel Tower and unseen below, the thirteenth pillar of the tunnel, which the Mercedes hit at an estimated speed of 105 km/h.  We drove by a few times, trying to see and film anything that looked like evidence of a fatal crash.
The shock that consumed Paris shifted to the mourning and sadness that engulfed London and the whole of the United Kingdom.  The images of two young princes walking behind their mother’s coffin are indelible, conveying a sense of pure sadness, at least to me, as the father of a teenager at the time.  It was something we could all relate to – even a royal princess can be killed in a car accident.
I think the only other image that will hold up in the same way is that of the Queen, sitting alone, dressed in black and wearing a face mask, as she buried her husband Philip during the pandemic.
Diana naturally became the people’s princess, mother of a future king, still an object of fascination and worship.  And people are returning to this tunnel in Paris, drawn by the tragedy that unfolded there 25 years ago on the last day of August.