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Good evening. Be kind, be a little tolerant to me tonight because I’m going to start with personal reminiscence.

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The days after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997 were the oddest of my forty-plus years as a journalist.

I was editing a newspaper and the whole country, or at least the heart of London, seemed to have gone nuts.

Amidst the sobbing, and giant pyramids of dead flowers, and the huge queues to sign books of condolence, hardheaded reporters came back telling me of Diana appearing as a vision in paintings in St James’s Palace.

So, a collective hallucination, I asked? No, they said she’s really appearing.

Later, attending her funeral service at Westminster Abbey, I........

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