Unforgettable Icons: Princess Diana Lives On

15 years ago today Princess Diana died in a car crash in a Parisian road tunnel alongside her companion Dodi Fayed, triggering an extraordinary chain of events.

Within hours, a carpet of flowers began spreading from her home at Kensington Palace in London as Britons threw off their reserved reputation and mourned openly.

Diana's funeral was heavy with emotion, not least when her brother Earl Charles Spencer used his sermon to attack the press who had pursued her throughout her adult life and who might have contributed to the crash which killed her.

I recall exactly when I first heard the sad news of Princess Diana's death. It was on Sunday morning - August 31st, 1997 - and I was just taking a shower while the radio was playing in the background. With the 7 a.m. news the radio host announced her tragic death and my first thought was "They gotta be f*cking kiddin', this ain't true!". Still hoping that this was some kind of a hoax, I jumped out of the shower, wet all over, ran into the living room and turned on the tv to check if CNN and Sky News had any info on this. When I realised that this was "breaking news" on virtually every available tv channel, I was totally devasted, it literally broke my heart! However I was still in denial of her death and it took me a week until her funeral that I finally realised she was gone.

Princess Diana was so universally loved. She showed the royals how to connect with ordinary people. That's what made her the Queen of people's hearts and even 15 years after her death her legacy lives on.

Below is one of the last known handwritten notes by Princess Diana on her own stationary dating from June 1997, just around eight weeks before she died.

BBC World news presenter Nik Gowing announces the death of Princess Diana