'DIANA was a force to be reckoned with'

On the 25th anniversary of Princess Diana's passing, royal correspondent and confidante Jennie Bond remembers her

- Jenni Bond

We sat in her plush drawing room at Kensington Palace, surrounded by framed photos of 'her boys', William and Harry, and dissected the collapse of her marriage to their father, Charles. Diana was in a chatty mood.

It was June 1995: five months before she gave her infamous interview to Panorama's now-disgraced Martin Bashir. But the Princess was already rehearsing some of the lines that were to become so well known. 'There were always three of us in this marriage,' she told me, 'so it was a bit crowded.'

She thought that, without Camilla, her marriage might have survived. 'But,' she said, 'I now know- and we should all recognise that Charles' love for his lady friend is stronger than any marriage he might have made. She is the love of his life. And she has been loyal and discreet.

Diana was in a conciliatory mood that sunny day. She even suggested Camilla deserved 'some form of recognition'. Quite what a 61-year-old Princess would make of the prospect of her love rival becoming Queen Consort, we shall never know.

Like so many people, I have a vivid memory of the moment, 25 years ago, that I heard there had been a car crash in Paris, involving Diana. It was the end of August and I was with my husband and our seven-year-old daughter on holiday in Devon, more than 200 miles from the BBC TV studios. Foolishly, I'd promised my daughter that she would have her mum for fun and cuddles for the next couple of weeks. The phone rang just after midnight; it was the newsroom and I had no choice but to set out for London.

At Balmoral, the Queen and Prince Charles were anxiously waiting for news, and wondering whether to wake the boys. When, in the early hours of the morning, Diana was confirmed dead, it seemed like a national tragedy. Mass hysteria began to sweep through the country, just as the ocean of flowers outside Kensington Palace swept ever outwards to swamp the gardens.