Diana at 60, living on in a million hearts. Out of sight now but rarely out of mind.
She lives on in the lives and work of her sons who will, in spite of their differences, come together at Kensington Palace to unveil a statue of their mother – commissioned from sculptor Ian Rank-Broadley – to mark her 60th birthday on July 1.
Diana gave me lots of hints about how she saw her future when she worked with me on my 1992 biography, Diana: Her True Story.
She sensed she was going to cut a different path from everyone else and do more hands-on charity work.
By the time she was 60 she would have had a quarter of a century to do what she wanted, free from the Palace.
By now she would have remarried – a successful, confident man, a politician, doctor or businessman.
I believe she would have had more children. She always wanted a baby daughter and teased Charles, when Fergie came over with Beatrice and Eugenie, over what might have been.
When she died she had not tasted the true joy of being a grandparent.
Today she would be “glam ma” to five youngsters.
As for her daughters-in-law, Catherine and Meghan, it would have been a fascinating relationship.
She would warm to Catherine, her initial shyness on the public stage reminding her so much of her own early trepidation in front of a screaming crowd.
As for Meghan, she would find the energetic American mesmerising and intimidating.
Diana was desperate to be known for speeches, rather than fashions, and took lessons to learn how to deliver talks.
She would have been taken aback on first meeting Meghan, a force of nature able to speak with passion and precision – and all without notes.
But as she got to know her and see the vulnerable side of a woman who suffered mental trauma during her first pregnancy – as did Diana – they would have bonded.
Diana would have been so concerned about the rift between Harry and William.
She always saw Harry as the reliable wingman for William, for when he took on the lonely position of Sovereign.
She may well have approached Charles to work out how to reconcile the two brothers.
She understood her youngest son, a tendency to wear his heart on his sleeve and his desire to forge his own path.
After all, she had staged her own great escape and had survived.
It would be the ultimate irony that the woman who unmasked the inner workings of her marriage and the monarchy would act as peacemaker to save the institution she walked away from.
One thing is certain though. The boys would have put aside their differences to organise a party to remember for their precious mother.
