Remembering Diana: Family, Royalty Gather for Memorial 10 Years After Death

Aug 31, 09:05 AM

Current Headlines: By ROBERT BARR

LONDON (AP) - Diana was solemnly remembered Friday at a service attended by the Queen, Prince Charles, her sons William and Harry, and her own family on the 10th anniversary of her death in a Paris car crash.

The service at Guards' Chapel near Buckingham Palace began with music and the singing of hymns. The congregation was called to prayer to "remember with love and gratitude Diana, Princess of Wales."

Prince William read from the Gospels. Harry, her younger son, delivered a moving eulogy.

"When she was alive, we completely took for granted her unrivalled love of life, laughter, fun and folly," Harry said.

"She was our guardian, friend and protector. She never once allowed her unfaltering love us to go unspoken or undemonstrated."

"To us, just two loving children, she was quite simply the best mother in the world."

It was a day of tribute to her life and marriage that still agitates the Royal Family and the British public.

It was a day for broadcasting video snippets of one wedding and funeral; for rehashing the rights and wrongs of the failed marriage of Diana and Charles.

It was one more day for dredging up questions about how she came to die in the car crash in Paris with her boyfriend Dodi Fayed, and for the Daily Telegraph to publish an essay which explained "why we were right to weep for Diana."

William and Harry were credited with organizing the noontime service, but Charles was blamed by many for the row over an invitation to his current wife.

Camilla, who was blamed by Diana for breaking up her marriage, decided to stay home. That decision followed quickly after the Daily Mail on Sunday published a commentary by Diana's friend, Rosa Monckton, saying the princess would have been "astonished" that Camilla was invited.

"Actually, she would have been astonished to learn that her former husband had married his longtime mistress," Monckton wrote.

Camilla's first wedding, to Andrew Parker Bowles, had been at the Guards' Chapel.

The Queen headed the list of guests at the service, along with her husband Prince Philip. Prince Edward, Charles' younger brother, and his sister Princess Anne - who reportedly didn't intend to come - were in the congregation.

A few hundred people had gathered outside by midmorning, in contrast to the masses who lined the route of Diana's funeral procession to Westminster Abbey 10 years ago.

Diana's most ardent admirers tied scores of bouquets, poems and pictures to the gates of Kensington Palace, Diana's former home, but the display paled in comparison to the vast carpet of blossoms that accumulated in the days immediately after her death.

Rev. Frank Gelli, who has led an informal service outside Kensington Palace every year, said this probably would be the last one. "It would be good if the princess was allowed to rest," he told a reporter.

Eileen Neathey, 56, of London, treasured the memory of a chance encounter with Diana at a hospital, where Neathey's mother was a patient.

"I had been up all night and was very upset, and when I bumped into Diana I burst into tears," said Neathey, who was outside Kensington Palace. "She put her arm round me and comforted me - that's the way she was."

"I saved up money to be here today," said Susan Chickowski, 38, a florist from Saskatchewan, Canada.

"When she passed away, I felt like I'd lost my best friend. She's been such a big part of my life," Chickowski said. "Now it's time to move on, 10 years on, for myself personally."

John Loughrey, 52, had painted "Diana" on his forehead and "the truth?" on his cheek. "We must get to the bottom of how she died," Loughrey said.

"She reached our lives deeply, even in America. She brought life to the palace and warmth, and that's what the monarchy needed," said Arlene Fitch, 54, of Boston, one of the early arrivals.

Fitch and her sister, Marie Schofield, 46, from Florida, said they planned their vacation to be in London at the time of the service.

"She (Diana) got married the same year as me, she had children the same year as me and, as her boys have grown up, they have done just the same kind of things as our boys would do," Schofield said.

Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, who wrote two gossipy books about his years in her service, was not invited to the service. Nor was Patrick Jephson, the princess' former private secretary, who also wrote two books about her.

Sir Elton John was invited, but he would not reprise his reworking of "Candle in the Wind," which he performed at the funeral. Canadian rocker Bryan Adams was in the congregation.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown and former Prime Minister John Major, who was in office when the royal marriage broke up, also were invited, as were more than 110 representatives of charities and other organizations that Diana supported.

Mohamed al Fayed, who accuses Prince Philip of masterminding a plot to kill Diana and Dodi Fayed, also was not on the guest list. He planned his own two minutes of silence at Harrods, his department store.

A prayer written for the memorial service by Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, gives thanks "for all the memories of her that we treasure still."

"Her vulnerability and her willingness to reach out to the excluded and forgotten touched us all; her generosity gave hope and joy to many. May she rest in peace where sorrow and pain are banished," Williams wrote.

The Royal Family had refrained from any public remembrance of the anniversary of the princess' death.

This year, however, William and Harry took the lead in organizing the memorial service, as well as a rock concert on Diana's birthday, July 1, which drew 70,000 fans.