Caring Princess loved by ordinary people

From the The Bolton News, first published Wednesday 29th Aug 2007.

TEN years after the death of Princess Diana her sons Princes William and Harry will lead what is bound to be a moving memorial service in her honour on Friday.

Without her still walking among us, it's easy to forget exactly the effect she had on people, especially the sick and suffering.

Always controversial, she was not the kind of royal to shut up if she felt there was injustice - to others or herself - and she wasn't always popular with officialdom.

Ordinary people, however, loved her, and there are still many in Bolton who remember her visit in 1993 to officially open the town's hospice.

It was only this week that gardening expert Bert Ellis spoke about a revealing event that happened while she was touring the wards.

Bert had made the Princess a beautiful bouquet which she carried with her. As she visited one young woman, the mother of nine children and desperately ill, the Princess chatted in the gentle, informal way that won her so many fans, asking her about her life.

The young woman said all she wanted was to be able to buy a bouquet for her mother-in-law for Mothering Sunday that weekend, to thank her for looking after her children.

The Princess simply said "well, wait no more", and gave the young woman her own bouquet.

The poor lass died that weekend, but her family kept that dried bouquet as their most treasured possession.

No-one except those in that room and the woman's family knew about that simple, spontaneous gesture, but it was typical of the Princess.

She instinctively knew about caring, and that perhaps is her real and enduring legacy.

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