Princess Diana: The Woman Behind The Camera | Our History

The photographic icon of her age, Diana Princess of Wales was unique, a phenomenon created by press, public, palace and the princess herself. One woman's work tells the story of an extraordinary life lived in the spotlight. Jane Fincher photographed Diana for 17 years. You feel like you know every inch of her, I mean I've you know stood and stared at her ears and fingers and her feet and her ankles for so many hours. She was such a good actress and played out the role in front of the camera so much that you felt you knew all of it but in fact you didn't. The relationship between Diana and the photographers ended in disaster. I've always thought to myself maybe one day someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get injured or knocked over or something's going to happen but I always thought it would be a photographer. I'd never ever imagined it to be her. To be so intensely photographing one person for such a long period is rather a bizarre job really. It was seven days a week, 24 hours a day and it ruled your life. It's a bit of an obsession really I suppose, I mean you always had like a groupie. You have to be so intense about the subject to do it because it was so time consuming. Every public appearance by Diana Princess of Wales was captured for posterity. Over the years Press and the Princess developed a close and informal relationship. Diana instinctively knew the power of the media. She found opportunities to strike up unique relationships with these the people she saw every day of her working life. People say there was such a terrible relationship between her and photographers and it's not true. The regular people that she worked with well over the years, there was great respect and we really did like her and we had a lot of fun with her. Jane was the only female photographer on the circuit. Behind the scenes and on camera she developed a particular rapport with Diana. The look she gave the men was sort of flirty, sexy. With me I think it was more of a natural, more female to female look. Jane has more than 20,000 images of the Princess, on the job and in private, on good days and bad. Some pictures reveal the unspoken truth, some mask the reality. Brings back lots of memories for me, that doorway and those arches. First time I photographed her was the Ritz Hotel in London in November 1980. She arrived for Princess Margaret's 50th birthday party, she was a guest. I was standing with a group of photographers by the door, we were just waiting for the main roles to arrive and this girl came up behind us and just sort of said, excuse me, excuse me, very shy, sort of timid girl and we all sort of parted the way and then she walked in the door and as she went in one of the Fleet Street photographers said, I'm sure that looks like this woman, this Diana Spencer, they keep saying is Prince Charles's girlfriend. So I waited for hours and hours the early morning and it was freezing cold out here, really windy, coldy night and she came out huddled in this great big green woolly coat. She went bright red with embarrassment and I took the first picture about here, that was my first frame ever of her. I think I only took two pictures, it all happened so quickly and I never thought that that would be the first two of all those thousands and thousands. For Jane there was something intriguing about Lady Diana Spencer. The other girlfriends that we'd photographed him with would always sort of turn up at polo and sit there and it was quite public but suddenly this one, everybody went very quiet about her. The secrecy was there and the mystique started so everybody instantly thought, well you know, if there's all this hush-hush about her, no one will make comment, it must be the one. It became a big news story and everybody was camping down by her flat at her own court trying to get pictures of her. She was everything, the photographers liked, she looked so good and she was young and pretty from the right background and sort of all the bits fitted into the puzzle. The media laid siege to Diana's apartment in West London. I used to come up really early every morning along here and got to know the area very well so I was always here at the crack of dawn. Well we used to just sort of stand on the pavement here and stare up at those windows in the hope of a glimpse from her or photograph her or she was going to wind the window up and lean out or something but she never did. I think the first few weeks she giggled her way through it and was having lots of jokes with the photographers and there was a nice rapport. After a couple of weeks I think we all got a bit tired of it and I think the pressure was building up behind the scenes too you know and I think she started to get fed up with it and the famous Diana head down started. How well are you coping with all the press attention? Well as you can see, you can tell. Are you bearing up with it quite well though because it must be quite a strain with all of us aren't you? Well it is naturally. If it was today and I had to go up and stand outside somebody's flat and chase them around London I wouldn't do it. Technically you could say yes it was paparazzi but I think it wasn't paparazzi in the same way you look at it now. Everybody was well behaved and it was just a completely different era of photographers. Nineteen-year-old Diana worked as a nanny and nursery school assistant. Photographers followed her to work every day. To keep them at bay Diana learned to strike deals over pictures. She was taking a child for a walk in Eton Square, a little boy she used to look after and she came out and there was quite a few photographers there so she came to a very quick deal with us that I'll go for a walk you lot wait here when I get back if you don't follow me and pester me I'll put my head up and you can take some nice pictures and that's exactly what happened and the deal worked. Such arrangements didn't always work so well. Diana surprised photographers by agreeing to pose for them at the kindergarten where she worked. Much to Jane's regret she wasn't there that day but her rival was. Halfway through doing the picture the sun came out believe it or not and it just showed us that she was near a no-pedico and of course saw these fantastic legs and it made the picture. On her first official outing two weeks after the engagement was announced Diana made the mistake again of bearing a bit too much flesh. Her slip-up was front page news. I think that both of those occasions taught her really quite hard lessons and ones that she never really forgot to be really careful about what you're wearing in front of the camera. Newly engaged and still only 19 Lady Diana Spencer was just getting used to being the focus of attention. At 23 Jane Fincher was also getting to grips with her role on the other side of the camera. She'd started working for her father a well-known photographer who ran his own picture agency. It was a new beginning for the royals in more ways than one. The photographs were becoming human and when she got down and kissed more children and touched their hands it was a different sort of and everybody said did you get that? It was something come to life with the pictures. In July 1981 Britain was in the grip of an economic recession. A royal wedding was a welcome relief and Jane was in London to photograph it. There was a wonderful atmosphere there were so many visitors and everybody was waving flags and I mean camping on the streets waiting for their spot on the wedding day. I think my father said that the last time he'd seen such big crowds was Churchill's funeral something like this. You felt like it was so historic. London was a complete standstill it seemed like the whole world had stopped. Every big lens long lens had been hired from every camera shop all over Europe they've been hired in broad influx of coming in from America. The build-up to the wedding was you know a bit of a nightmare really because everybody was like you know you can imagine there was weeks of arguing with the media about who was going to be in which position. For the big day it was up to each photographer to secure their own spot. Jane negotiated with the city authorities for a position outside St Paul's Cathedral. It's strange coming back here really because it all looks so dull really compared to the day. It's like a sort of film set that all the action stopped and I think when that moment they came out on the top of the steps it seemed so much promised for the future and we all had so many expectations of this fairy tale prince and princess coming out and to come back now and you know to sort of know what happened you feel really sad. But the royal wedding was the stuff of fairy tales and Jane found it very easy to provide the pictures to tell the story. The couple went on a honeymoon cruise and then to Balmoral where they posed for photographers. It was very romantic pictures you know kissing hands and walking through the heather she was quite full of herself it was quite surprising how confident she was that The confidence at Balmoral was short-lived. Shy Dye as the press dubbed her normally had the photographers scrambling for a full face shot. This particular occasion I was on the Westminster bridge and she was on the pier below waiting for the arrival of Queen Beatrix and she wouldn't put her head up and I couldn't even see her face and then suddenly a photographer next to me dropped his lens off the bridge and it fell into the water next to her and she looked up started to giggle her head off right down into my lens and I thought oh wonderful you know cover cover cover. The demand for pictures changed with each development in Diana's life story. When the announcement came that she was pregnant the next shot everybody wanted was of the princess in maternity wear. Diana obliged. The day before we knew that she was pregnant she went to an event in London and she looked really thin and pale no way did she look pregnant whatsoever there's no guessing there other than the fact that she fell asleep that night in public and then a few days later she came to a lunch and she had this huge coat on that looked like a sort of maternity coat you would wear when you're about six months pregnant. We loved it because she looked you know like a mother-to-be. Diana enjoyed projecting the image of expectant mother. Previous generations of royal ladies had retired from public life during their pregnancies not Diana. It just everything everything was getting more and more exciting more and more interest more and more demand. After the intense build-up to the royal birth the most important shot of all was the one Jane missed. The royal couple with their new baby and heir to the throne. Another photographer who worked for Jane's father was there instead. It makes me feel a bit sick still when I see this and I can't really believe that I never actually got back to take the picture myself. It's a very historic picture and I think the worst thing I ever missed really. Don't talk to me about that baby I was thinking of hiring a helicopter from here to get her there in time. The minute that it was on the radio that she'd gone into hospital everybody rushed down to the lindow wing and grabbed a spot. The news came the baby had been born and then it sort of went into sort of a lull because we all expected that she would probably stay in for days and I swapped shift with someone else that worked with us and off I went home. Driving home I had turned the radio on it said oh the prince and princess of Wales are about to leave the lindow wing with their new baby and I just sort of froze oh god I felt sick and I turned the car around and tried to get back there you know I wasn't that far away but the traffic was bad. Stuck in traffic again aren't we. As I drove around there was all my colleagues all my competitors walking away from the scene winding their films back looking all chuffed and smug they got all these wonderful pictures and my heart just sunk you know I was so upset I just got out the car and burst into tears. Well years later we were talking about the day she came out of hospital with William and she was telling me it was very daunting you know coming out she was still feeling really grotty and all the photographers looking at her and how awful she felt. I said I got there and I missed the pitch and I was crying in the street she said you weren't the only one crying because I got in the car and as I drove around the corner I was crying too because it was all too much and so you know they were both crying that day. Young mother, new royal and emerging fashion icon interest in Diana was unrelenting but the lens's ability to mask the reality of the royal marriage was limited. There was a twist in the fairy tale and the press had to be careful how they told it. First of all it was just that she was losing her baby weight and getting her figure back so that was sort of accepted but then she started looking very very bony as soon as she got out the car you think oh gosh she looks so thin. Pretty pictures of a happy couple that was a nice story the public wanted that. The public did not want to know that that fairy tale wedding that it was all a sham. If you tell readers of national newspapers things they don't want to hear they stop buying your newspaper. The press were keen to make full use of the disturbing pictures but wanted to avoid offending readers. I think one has to realise one uses a photograph for impact but cushions it by saying you know it's we're so worried about her. Newspaper suggestions that Diana might be ill were met with an official denial. Years later she spoke more openly about the bulimia she was suffering from. In the meantime she became the darling of the British fashion industry. After she had Prince Harry she started to get a lot more sort of adventurous in her clothes big hair lots of jewellery it was all becoming more and more great for pictures and sort of fashion icon bit started to build up. We didn't know very much about Diana there weren't many stories to write about Diana so her clothes were very important but in the meantime it gave us great copy and great pictures. In the early days if a magazine just put Diana on the cover even a headshot it would sell full stop without a story behind it you could fill pages and pages with the outfits back views side views. People would be doing books on Diana's dresses books on Diana's hats. Diana used to get off a plane or get out of a car at some event and there'd be a secretary there giving you a piece of paper saying this dress was made by such and such a designer the hat is made by this designer and it's trimmed in this and it's done in that. It was a massive industry just this one woman and I think she didn't realise half it half the time anyway herself she used to sort of say bets with the with her policemen when she'd turn up in the jail I wonder how many photographers would be at a day and he'd say 20 she'd say no 10 and there'd be 30. You're desperate to get the new hat at the right angles the evening dresses we loved you would say right okay and what I need is I need a good fashion shot I need a good cover shot I need a good jewellery shot maybe so you'd go full length half length close up you'd have this routine you would do you'd shoot with a routine so that you make sure you've got what you need because you know that's what they're going to ask for your customers are going to ask for and the magazine editors are going to ask for. Jane Fincher's family business supplied pictures on a freelance basis mainly to magazines. Her customers could pick and choose from hundreds of images sent to them. Jane was under constant pressure to deliver the best shot. For staff photographers on newspapers time was the enemy. Princess whatever she did was news. I remember going up to Scotland and getting her being blown she was going into church and being windswept and getting an hysterical row with the editor because I was late getting the pictures back no fault of mine you know it was a problem with planes and things and him screaming at me saying this is the most important woman in the world you know I've got these pictures and so the pressure was all the time on you but not to just get the pictures but to get them back to get the editions. With such a huge demand for pictures of the princess the stakes were high for the designers who dressed her. You know that that hat has to look good because it's going to be seen by millions and of course one thing about the Princess of Wales she did more or less play to millions. She really became a fashion icon in a sense that she was always wearing something new and exciting and the press wanted to photograph you couldn't do the same thing twice. But the world's most famous cover girl wasn't quite perfect. There was a lot of stories at one point in the papers about has Diana had a nose job and I think I would think I said at the time you know if she has she should ask for her money back because her nose could be quite difficult if she turned slightly her nose could look quite large at times particularly when she was going through the sort of thinner periods of her life. Diana learnt to show herself off to the best advantage every aspect of her appearance was under scrutiny from her changing hairstyles to the detail in her outfits. Every time she went to a country she'd obviously think in advance about something she could wear that would sort of honour or have a theme to the country she was visiting. This was a great example of it in Japan when she wore a dress that had the rising sun on exactly like the Japanese flag she was standing next to. I think she was doing it for the photographers. I mean she probably thought the host would like it too but probably for photographers more than anything. It was guaranteed to be on the front page the next day. The type of publicity Diana generated wasn't always what the royal family wanted. It became such a big problem for Prince Charles that he stopped us getting information about the clothes. The pretext was that he was looking after her image and he wanted her to be more serious. I think the truth was actually that he just didn't like all this attention paid to her. He thought it was frivolous and it upstaged him. But her clothes and the interest they provoked were becoming very useful to Diana. On one occasion we were talking about her forthcoming French trip that's going to be very high profile and she said oh you know the trouble is I can't speak French you know I'm really thick I can't speak French but she said but I've decided what I'll do instead and they won't notice is I'll dress from head to toe in Chanel when I step off the plane and no one will notice that I don't understand or speak the language because they'll all be looking at what I'm wearing and she did. She stepped off the plane there it was head to toe in Chanel. The French loved it it was all raving about it and nobody commented about her not speaking French. During the so-called War of the Waleses fashion was Diana's weapon and this picture in a dress designed by Christina Stambolian one of her greatest victories. But when she bought the dress three years before she would wear it in public she was nervous about it. She loved the idea I knew it she liked to think of herself wearing that dress that's why she was laughing quite a lot and giggling but at the same time she knew she wasn't going to be able to because of the family she was coming from. In 1994 Charles admitted his adultery with Camilla Parker Bowles on national television. Diana's fears of royal disapproval went out of the window. We'd never seen her in a dress like that before not that daring or that short. It was amazing you know to see her in so many photographs every newspaper had Diana on front. There's no doubt about it she definitely used her clothes at all to portray a visual image or mood or a particular time of her life and just by dressing in something she could do that quite easily without having to say a word so it's quite a powerful it's quite a powerful tool really when you think about it. The Princess of Wales was the bread and butter of Jane Fincher's family business. People think that you made fortunes out of it and everybody that took a picture of Diana would be a millionaire and that's not true because you spent vast amounts following her around the world and it was very expensive so you didn't you weren't always making matters of money but obviously it was a good living and it kept us all in a job. Professional pride as much as money drove the photographers to be fiercely competitive. Diana couldn't fail to notice their daily antics. As much as we spent our lives looking at her for 17 years she spent her life looking at us so I mean we were a great source of entertainment watching us all tripping over and pushing each other and all vying for a spot of land with our ladder I mean if you stood back and watched it it's very funny scene and she would often be in the hysterics watching us. On trips abroad with Diana the traditional distance between press and royalty was broken down. Diana threw cocktail parties at which she got to know her press entourage. I mean I suppose being you know limited on the female companies you could always come and get the female gossip from me. You talk about anything from pop stars to film premieres she'd been to recently and what did you think about this handsome film star she'd met and clothes and the country she's visiting what do you think about the food she was eating any literally anything you just it'd be so casual. On as well as off duty Jane was sometimes treated differently as a woman especially on visits to parts of the world like the gulf states. To sort of have a woman doing my role was quite unusual they were quite interested to see me working with all the men but they weren't quite sure how to handle me particularly when it came to a push and shove at a particular event where Diana was being presented with an Arab robe and it was going to be a very good picture and they were pushing all the photographers back and they were in the wrong angle and I sort of slipped out and moved around the side and the security men didn't stop me or do anything they just sort of well she's a lady so let her go. To beat the competition it paid to keep up with the latest technology. Jane was the first to try out autofocus lenses in Canada in 1991 when Diana was reunited with her sons aboard the royal yacht. The result was a photographic scoop and Diana's favourite shot which she had framed in her dressing room at Kensington Palace. To follow it with a normal camera with a lens was very difficult because she moved quite quickly and the light wasn't good and it was everything technically was against you this autofocus just loved it just locked on her and followed her all the way along and boom that one shot. She had spotted the photographers no doubt about that and she had her arms out raised as she rushed along the deck that went around the world that photograph and of course two seconds later Prince Charles got there and hugged his boys but nobody ever saw those pictures nobody cared. Diana was always the story always always. I remember doing some nice pictures at a polo match with Charles and Harry once and they were lovely pictures very sweet very tender but no one ever used them they weren't so interested in it because it was him. In the prince's official 40th birthday portraits he was pictured as the loving father at the centre of a happy family. Jane was invited to spend a morning at the family's country home Highgrove House taking the pictures. The strange thing was you know it's supposed to be at the point when everything had gone wrong in their lives and their marriage was over but you know and I can never get over this that they just seemed really together there was no jibing each other there was a lot of laughter a lot of contact it doesn't seem like they were acting or on just sort of giving me a performance. But the couple were living separate lives. Charles had long since returned to his old love Camilla Parker Bowles and Diana had been having a passionate affair with James Hewitt for nearly two years. A few people had an idea of the desperate state the royal marriage was in. One of them was tabloid journalist Andrew Morton. I remember Andrew ringing him up he was one of the journalists that rang me up and said oh I hear you've been at Highgrove and there was a really awful atmosphere between them and you know their marriage is on the rocks and I said oh no I don't think you're right Andrew I think you've got it right their marriage isn't on the rocks I'm the one that's been there having a drink and watching them and sitting there and talking to them not you I'm right you know there's nothing wrong with their marriage I couldn't have been further from the truth. Diana later secretly communicated with Morton. His explosive book was published four years after those 40th birthday portraits and shortly after the princess posed alone in front of the world's greatest monument to love the Taj Mahal. Observers could be forgiven for thinking that the media savvy princess was preparing the public for the shocking revelations she knew were to come. Jane believes that the role played by the press that day at the Taj Mahal is often overlooked. I think it was probably more of a press manipulation that day it was a good story a good line and the journalists put it together I think it was you know blown up to suit the story of the day really. When Charles visited the Taj Mahal in 1980 before the marriage he told the press he'd like to bring his wife there one day but on that day in 1992 he had another engagement. The palace wanted some of the press to accompany the prince but the story was Diana and the shot was Diana on her own in front of the Taj Mahal. Photographers instigated that we didn't want her sitting there with all hundreds of officials and we didn't want anyone else in the picture we just wanted her for that classic Indian picture. One more. She wasn't going to sit there on her own because of the marriage it was because we were pressing to get that picture. The other bit that everybody always comments on is when she went off and sat on a bench in the far corner. I think it was a simple logistics thing because she knew that we had to get back to position down there because she'd been told that we wanted the picture of her walking towards us. She was obviously you know brief to hang back a little bit and everybody sort of said that she went there to sort of think about her marriage but I think that was just the spin of the day. Both press and the princess knew how to Four months after the photo call at the Taj Mahal the publication of Andrew Morton's book showed beyond doubt that the royal marriage was deeply unhappy. Jane had been approached about the book. The publishers called her to ask if she'd like to do a private photo session with the princess. I was astounded. I thought Andrew Morton and Diana that is a very strange combination but I thought well you know if she's agreed to do it then I'll agree to do it. I'm quite happy to do it so I said yes I'll do it and we planned that it would be done in a few weeks and that they would get in touch with me and we would decide what sort of pictures we'd do and we'd try and do some nice informal ones at home and so I was very excited, drove home very excited about this project and but obviously had to keep it absolutely hush-hush. I wasn't allowed to tell anyone and then eventually I got a phone call from the publishers saying oh no well you know it's a change of plans now you don't need to come and do any photographs. Still doing the book but we've got some photographs from somewhere else. Photographs from a specially arranged shoot would have revealed the princess's direct association with Andrew Morton. It was really difficult not to tell anyone that I knew because you know there's all this controversy going on about in the newspapers about did she help or didn't she help and I knew that she was directly talking to them about the book so there was no question about it. Diana wanted people to believe what they were reading and chose to show her support for the book in a more subtle way. Pictures of her paying a friendly visit to Caroline Bartholomew, one of the book's named contributors, did the trick. The photographer who took this picture had been tipped off as to when and where the crucial photo opportunity would take place. In the wake of the book Jane received more and more requests for pictures of the unhappy couple. This was a classic example of how picture editing can suit the story of the day. You know it was in Italy when they were very happy on that trip and the pictures were very happy and at the time photographs of them smiling were used widely but then years later when the marriage had broken up and people were looking for pictures of them looking grumpy they used this picture that came out the archive. In fact she's actually adjusting her sunglasses she's not being grumpy at all but you know it's an example of how you can sort of choose the picture to suit the mood really. The camera does lie. On the couple's last official tour in November 1992 to Korea there was no shortage of shots of them looking gloomy. There was a banquet where she sort of yawned and looked as if she wanted to go to sleep and all the time Prince Charles was doing his speech she was looking fed up, bored, you know, totally upstaging him. She didn't want to be there and she wanted us all to know it. A month later the couple separated. With her position as Prince Charles's future queen compromised Diana set out to redefine her public role. On visits to Red Cross projects in Nepal and Zimbabwe the following year Diana was remodelling herself as a goodwill ambassador for Britain. She wanted the press to take her seriously. When we were in Nepal she got very touchy about people who'd been writing about her clothes and she sort of made a comment about you know she was going to visit refugee camp and she said people keep writing stories about me my clothes and what they expect me to turn up in a refugee camp in a ball gown and she was getting a bit touchy about it then. The photographers had a crucial part to play in shaping Diana's new image but it was a delicate business. In Zimbabwe Diana posed for this picture on their request. She later regretted it. I remember talking to Diana about this very shot. We were probably not very happy with it. I cringe now when I think about it because it's a very negative image of you know the black child asking for food from the beautifully dressed white lady and it subsequently felt very patronising. I remember saying to her I would never ask you to do that now and she said to me no and I wouldn't let you. Diana was working out how best to make her mark. To add to the impact she could make through photographs she was beginning to speak about causes. She hired a voice coach whose first task was to write a speech on eating disorders which her officials were nervous about. Her staff felt that she had to sort of keep her head down and work within whereas I suppose to an extent my attitude was you know why are we doing a speech on bulimia if you don't want her to talk about it. Diana chose to make a stand and began the speech with what was in effect a personal admission that she had been a bulimia victim. Ladies and gentlemen I have it on very good authority that the quest for perfection our society demands can leave the individual gasping for breath at every turn. And it was like she just had got it and she phoned me up later that afternoon she said I'm lying on the bed and I just feel so good I don't know what to do with this feeling. I said just bloody remember it this this feeling that you've got now this is who you really are this is what you're about for the future. In the year since her separation Diana had shed her old image and proved she could play a solo part on the world stage but she had set a pace that would be hard to keep up. I was constantly trying to persuade her to do things that I thought would help the people for whom we were working. The media did exactly the same for their reasons. She must have sometimes gone home and gone to bed and thought for goodness sake will you not leave me alone. The year had also seen an increase in intrusive press attention. In particular the publication of the shockingly intimate pictures of the princess in the gym. The pressure of being in the spotlight had become too much. In December 1993 Diana announced her decision to resign from public life. This picture really did sum up the story of the day. You know there she is with her head down looking unhappy and she's a battery of photographers behind her. Every lens trained on her for every move. Didn't have to write anything to go with that picture. If Diana thought she could switch the media interest in her off she was wrong. The paparazzi were desperate for pictures and followed her everywhere. And with palace security gone at her own request Diana was not properly protected. One sensational snap of the princess meant serious money. It was a very lucrative business for paparazzis that they could make hundreds of thousands of pounds with the right shot in one day. So attracted a lot of people to spend you know they could afford to spend the time just waiting for that one shot and you wouldn't have to do any more work for another year. Jane didn't want to be part of it. I was very disillusioned with the job very disillusioned with some of my colleagues and I just felt quite quite bitter in a way that that some of them had pulled my job down to that level. Diana was often on the defensive and it showed in the photographs. This is what I call a If you've got that look at you you thought oh god what have I done wrong? You know what have I done to upset her? But I think she would have given anybody that look on days like that. Jane refused to photograph the princess unless the cameras were specifically invited as they were to certain public events particularly charity visits. Although Diana said she was withdrawing from royal duties she continued as patron of over a hundred charities. In her quest to become a humanitarian champion she needed her charities just as they needed her. We did get attention we would not have before. We did get corporate and individual financial support we would not have had otherwise. On the other hand we gave the sort of images the sort of events without which her image would have been rather different. Diana visited the Institute of Conductive Education in October 1995. Jane was one of the photographers invited to be there. The princess's guide for part of her visit was ten-year-old Lawrence Chambers, a child with cerebral palsy. I spotted that little boy right from the beginning of the visit because he was a quite character. The moment when the princess gave Lawrence a goodbye hug made the photographer's day. Immediately afterwards Lawrence was mobbed by the press and I say what did she say and she said something like according to Lawrence I don't get many hugs like that nowadays. Newspapers took their cue and used the picture as evidence of the princess's deep need for affection. This was the sort of image which set her apart from the rest of the royal family. It was published throughout the world showing the extraordinary effect she had on her adoring public. It was also an image which created public sympathy at a time when Diana was soon to need it. A month later she gave the shock television interview in which she admitted her infidelity to the world. She also said though she wouldn't be Queen of England she wanted to be Queen of The interview made divorce inevitable. Loosening her ties with the palace left Diana free to take complete control of her charity work. My best memory of her feeling that she had found the right niche was on the trip to Angola where she went not as a member of the royal household. I know travelling in the Land Cruiser on one occasion you know she expressed that this was what she wanted to do in the future this was how she wanted to work. She'd done her homework, she knew why she was there, she knew what information she needed to get a hold of so that she could say the right thing when she got back. She wasn't part of the palace system it was Diana. She had managed to establish her own identity and everything that's in the photographs which fed back to the public established the woman in her own right. The last charity event at which Jane photographed Diana was a visit here to the London Lighthouse, a centre for people with HIV. Images of the princess with AIDS patients had the most enduring impact on public opinion of all. She created a very new attitude towards people with HIV especially among families, friends, partners that it was perfectly all right to show affection, perfect right to care for them. They needed someone to put their arms around them and Diana was prepared to do it. AIDS became so high profile because of her and she put a sort of heart into it and really worked hard for them and I think it paid off. The profile's gone down so much since she hasn't been there you don't see it every week in the magazines anymore like you did when she was alive. The princess's ability to focus attention on worthy causes always went hand in hand with the media obsession with her private and family life. Diana's main concern was to protect her own children. It was for their sake that she was soon to take unprecedented action against the paparazzi. Over the years Diana posed willingly for the cameras with her boys. Photographers had never before been able to capture such intimate images of a royal mother with her children. I thought she was raising the status of motherhood which was very you know denigrated in our society and she was good copy she provided us with great stories and she was unlike the rest of the royal family. Whether the cameras were on her or weren't on her she was good with the children. She was always touching them, fiddling with her hair so that obviously always looked very good in pictures. The princes were fearless in front of the cameras at first but the clamour for pictures became too much. William in particular started to resent the photographer's presence and Diana resolved to protect her boys from the press intrusion that had become part of her daily life. We had this conversation many times where she would say you know I can deal with it to some extent but I really don't like it when the children are around. She was very protective mother hen, she didn't want the children to go through that. In April 1997 Diana's lawyers called Jane asking her to come in and talk about a case they were preparing against paparazzi on the princess's behalf. I think she was getting very worried about the situation with having this constant harassment from the core of photographers with her and the children. As a parent could I ask you to respect my children's space? I went to London and I met with her lawyers and they showed me a lot of photographs and they wanted some technical details from me about what sort of lenses did I think they'd been taken with, what sort of distances, they wanted to know how did picture syndication work, how did agencies work, how these pictures were getting circulated and how they were getting taken. The case was a huge gamble for Diana. I think she was risking an awful lot doing it I mean had to be put into witness box where you know the prosecution could have cross-examined her about anything and it would have you know she would have been very vulnerable very vulnerable and she would have had to be pretty thick-skinned to go through with it really. I was quite surprised that she would contemplate that but it seemed you know she was determined to do it. By helping Diana Jane was breaking ranks with her colleagues. I felt very strongly about it and I wanted it to be sorted out and I wanted to have a professional standing back again from photographers that working in the royal circuit and I just thought maybe it was a way of helping. But Diana's actions on holiday with the Alfayeds that summer seemed to undermine everything the case was trying to achieve. In Saint-Tropez once I was there about three or four weeks before she died and she came over to our the press boat the British press boat and said you know how long will we stay in and she she looked terribly upset and terribly stressed and we said oh you know we'll go if you want us to go and she said I didn't say I want you to go I just want to know how long you're staying and then she would go away and then she did amazing things like she'd get on the back of a jet ski and roll around with one of her sons and you wondered what was going on you know this was a lady that was sort of one minute asking for privacy but instead of going into the privacy of the villa she was doing all these amazing things which made great pictures so I was a bit confused at some times. The princess didn't bother to hide her affair with Dodi Alfayed from the cameras either. While preparing her court case against certain paparazzi she was whipping the rest of the photographers into a frenzy. It was a dangerous game. The court case was soon to become irrelevant. On the 31st of August the fatal car accident took place in Paris with motorbike mounted paparazzi in pursuit. In the week that followed Jane had a difficult decision to make. I didn't want to photograph the funeral I just thought the whole photographer thing to the uncomfortable position of being seen as a photographer at that event and me myself I just felt sick I didn't want to do it I didn't want to be I didn't want to have another camera in front of anything to do with Diana I didn't want to be seen as part of it. I said we've got to cover this it's an important occasion we've covered her when she first came on the scene and it is the end of the story and an end of an event a bit of history. Jane was persuaded to change her mind. The thing that I remember mostly is the sound it's so noisy today and all the aeroplanes and the cars going by and the people and I think forevermore I'll remember that absolute hush. I never ever want to do another day's work like that ever again. The whole thing was like a sort of dream really I mean I couldn't think it was her you know I kept thinking back to I can't think of her in a coffin and being dead. She was such a live vibrant person I couldn't relate to it at all. I think the point really that really upset me most was was the moment when William and Harry and Charles arrived at the abbey and they were there standing in front of me albeit at a slight distance I felt I felt quite intrusive looking down my lens at them they were in such grief and I felt my heart went out to them I just it was just such an awful moment to actually see the boys in front of me and I just sort of had flashbacks of all the lovely times that I'd photographed and you know it just all came sort of like you know when you say you're drowning and everything flashes by in your life but it was a bit like that and I was sort of looking at them through my lens. I kept thinking of all those times when I'd seen them as little and her touching them and and all that sort of stuff. The strength of public grief shown at Diana's funeral surprised many. I was probably more prepared for the reaction around the world I'd seen the huge draw that she had with people I'd seen people's reaction you know completely get hysterical if she'd touched their hand or whatever so you know I think I was more prepared for those sort of scenes. But Jane wasn't prepared for the degree of hostility she and fellow photographers faced. I remember getting up on the stand the public was looking at me sort of look of venom you know I felt really really I felt like wearing a t-shirt saying I'm not a paparazzi I never did I didn't upset her you know I wasn't involved you know because I just felt I could feel the hatred from people I really you know I think perhaps I'm exaggerating but I really did feel it this hostility. Diana's death transformed the media's relationship with the royal family and for a short time with the public too. The aftermath of her death was horrendous for all the press and to turn so viciously on us to say you printed photographs of her with her children that was intrusive. That was what they wanted and the reason people thought they knew Diana personally was because Diana lived her feelings openly and that is why they bought magazines and newspapers. She had an incredible impact on people and that will never be forgotten. I suppose it is quite haunting her image to me. Her image is very vivid in my mind still. Looking back you realise what sort of part you were playing really in her and in the history of it. You know it was actually quite exciting to be part of that. It's something to tell your grandchildren isn't it that you were part of this huge icon's life.