It was just after 11 p.m. on a Saturday, August 30, 1997.
My wife, Jill, and I had returned from a night at the movies watching a newly released film: The Full Monty.
I had barely inserted the key into the lock when my cell phone rang.
A contact called me to say there had been a ‘minor dent’ in a car carrying Princess Diana.
I didn’t realize then that that was a night I would never forget for the rest of my life and that the horrible events remain fresh in my mind even now.
He had left the Ritz in Paris with Dodi Al Fayed (the son of the hotel’s owner, Mohammed Al Fayed), chauffeur Henri Paul and Dodi’s English bodyguard, Trevor Rees Jones.
He told me there were no further details yet, but I knew that even a bump involving the Princess would keep me busy the next morning.
Princess Diana was seen in Saint Tropez just weeks before her death in Paris
The last photograph taken of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed in the Mercedes car in which they were murdered shortly afterwards, on 31 August 1997.
Drunken chauffeur Henri Paul is seen at the wheel of the car alongside bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, while Diana and Dodi sit in the back.
That was the first of dozens and dozens of phone calls I received that night that kept me awake. Each call told me at each stage how bad everything was.
I called my news editor and the editor at home in the early hours of the morning because we found out that Diana and Dodi were in the car and that Dodi was probably dead.
Henri Paul had also been murdered and Diana was very ill.
Paul was driving the bulletproof black Mercedes 280SL that was chosen for the fateful trip.
He lost control in the Pont D’Alma tunnel underpass and the car suffered a terrible accident.
Both he and Dodi died instantly.
Despite efforts to save her, Diana was declared dead at 4:00 a.m. French time, after suffering a stroke at La Pitié Salpêtriére Hospital in Paris. Only Trevor Rees Jones survived.
The remains of the car that killed Diana were removed from the Alma underpass
The ambulance that took Princess Diana to hospital on the night of the accident.
Charles Rae, wearing a pale blue polo shirt, was spotted chatting to Princess Diana during their holiday in Saint Tropez.
Diana and her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, stayed at Mohamed Al-Fayed’s Château de Sainte-Thérèse in the billionaires’ playground of Saint-Tropez, France.
Prince Harry was spotted in Saint Tropez riding a jet ski while his mother Princess Diana sat on the back.
Around 3am another phone call from my contact told me that Diana was dead.
The call came just before it was officially announced by then Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.
For the next eight days I worked almost non-stop.
He wasn’t very friendly with the Princess, but we knew each other well.
Over the past few years, we had had many conversations. My deep sadness and anger at the fact that she was taken away so young has not diminished with the passing of the years.
The sad and tragic fact is that the couple died because Paul, who was not supposed to be on duty that night, had been drinking and speeding in an attempt to show off his driving skills.
Subsequent investigation confirmed the presence of alcohol in his blood.
Every police bodyguard I have spoken to on this matter says that if they had been on duty with the Princess that fateful night, they would never have let her into that car.
But the police had removed Diana from her bodyguard company after her separation from Prince Charles. This was at Diana’s request and not because the Queen had taken away a privilege.
Just a couple of weeks earlier, she had gone to Saint Tropez because Diana was on holiday with William and Harry.
She was hosted by controversial Harrods boss Al Fayed at his stunning “Château Sainte-Thérèse” in Saint Tropez in the south of France.
It was a cream-colored 10-bedroom villa set on a 10-acre cliff-top estate overlooking the blue sea.
From the estate, a long flight of steps led down to the sea, a private beach and a pier. It was valued at around £40m.
The area is the playground of the rich and famous and also leaks like a sieve.
No celebrity goes unnoticed for long and it was only a matter of time before news of Diana reached us.
Once there, we had to rent a boat. This was one of the first times that, thanks to technological advances, we would not have to leave the place to transport our photographs and prints.
We were able to do all this right there, at sea. We didn’t have to wait long to receive the reward.
Diana showed up in a leopard-print swimsuit and soon the boys were riding jet skis and laughing.
Shortly afterwards, I saw the princess on the balcony. She seemed agitated and was talking on her mobile phone.
Diana’s devastated sisters with her ex-husband, Prince Charles, leaving the hospital where the Princess died from injuries caused by the accident
Princess Diana’s coffin arrives at RAF Northolt after flying from Paris
With one hand he held his phone, while the other moved like a windmill.
The next thing the princess did was end the call, throw the phone onto a deck chair and then walk towards the pier where a speedboat was waiting for her.
With Dave Sharp, one of his sons’ police bodyguards, the boat sailed out to sea and came straight to our boat.
Diana stood up and was clearly not in a good mood.
This was in stark contrast to her previous behavior. What had happened on that phone call to make her so upset?
Diana made it perfectly clear that she didn’t want us to leave.
Just as he was about to leave, he dropped a bombshell that was never explained.
“You’ll be very surprised by what I do next,” he said.
He declined to give details of what the revelation would be or when it would happen.
Charles Rae is a former royal correspondent for The Sun and author of Diana: The People’s Princess – A Personal Tribute in Words and Pictures.
