NORMAL LIFE: Ten Years On

Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the shocking news that Diana, Princess of Wales, had died in a tragic car crash in Paris. As the events unfolded, the grief from around the world was somewhat unprecedented. I, myself, visited Kensington Palace during the week after her death - the smell of millions of flowers, left by people of every imaginable nationality was moving. Such was the experience that I went back there again a few days later; on both occasions, I went there alone and I haven't experienced anything along the lines of the mass of grieving humanity since.

Just as Diana had tried to make a difference to the lives of people in need, little did we realise just how much she had became a part of our lives. As the media portrayed her as a mother, champion for charities and a badly-treated wife, we somewhat sympathised with a woman who we, in fact, didn't even know.

I was actually at an event for the deaf at the National Film Theatre on London's South Bank many years ago, which Princess Diana also attended. I was a young, shy 17 year-old and looked on from afar. She was dazzling - he ability to communicate with total strangers, putting them at ease was a job she was expected to do. Even now, ten years after her death, no one in the Royal Family can even reach a fraction of what her presence alone commanded.

I'm not one to disrespect the Royal Family. I am perhaps one of the few people in my age group who believe that the nation needs 'something' more than the likes of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to look up to. If the Royal Family should be that 'something' which I am permitted to read about day-in-day-out and judge, then so be it. I just wish that Diana was still here. She was lovely to look at (unlike the rest of the Royal Family), a doting mother and a compassionate individual. I think the time has come, however, to let her rest in peace.