The Way We Were: Remembering Diana

Paul Burrell served Diana, Princess of Wales, as her faithful butler from 1987 until her death in 1997. He was much more than an employee: he was her right-hand man, confidant, and friend whom Diana herself described as "the only man she ever trusted." Featuring previously unseen interior photographs and remarkably intimate details, The Way We Were flings open the doors to Kensington Palace, leading readers deep inside the private world of Princess Diana-room by room, memory by memory. Marking the tenth anniversary of the princess's death, Burrell has penned a faithful and poignant tribute to "the boss"-capturing as never before her vivacity and love of life, her style, her fashion, and her heart.

The Way We Were
Remembering Diana

Chapter One

The gold Yale key turned in the lock, and my stomach lurched as the back door of Kensington Palace opened.

I stepped inside and walked forward, as the heavy black door slammed behind me, sending an echo throughout the emptiness that lay ahead. It was as dark and gloomy as ever in that part of the palace so I flicked the light switch. Nothing happened. The bulb must have blown, I thought.

Then I looked up to the ceiling and saw that the entire light fixture had been ripped out, leaving only dangling wires. I walked on, my footsteps echoing, to what had been the engine room of the 'home' I called KP, where tradesmen, staff and deliverymen had once busied themselves. I was in the middle of the lobby, once filled with the buzz of the refrigerator, the whirr of the ice-making machine, the swish of the dishwasher, the chatter of people coming and going. Now there was a void. The mail pigeon-holes were empty; black garbage bags, empty drawers and chairs lay about, discarded. KP looked as if it had been ransacked by thieves. Apartments 8 and 9 had been reduced to a shell, there wasn't a single hook for my memories.

It was 2002, and I had gone back to the apartments of Diana, Princess of Wales for the first time since I had left them in July 1998 when, even then, they were being emptied. Fine furniture was transferred to the Royal Collection. Jewellery was returned to Buckingham Palace. As the family was entitled to do, Princes William and Harry and the Spencer family had taken some items, and the Crown Estates had reclaimed the property. On the day I moved out, 24 July 1998, the apartments were being stripped. It was too painful for me to witness. I wanted to leave with a mental picture of what had been, dismissing the reality of what was taking place.

In the ensuing four years I steered clear of the palace.

I never imagined I'd ever see the day when I'd need to go back. I didn't want to go back. But it became necessary to return 'home' when Scotland Yard and the CPS charged me with theft from the boss's estate—the system's response to my spontaneous protection of her legacy. In preparation for my Old Bailey trial, which ended in acquittal in 2002, I had to walk my legal team through the palace to build up a picture of what life, and my role, had been like.

That day, accompanied by my barrister Lord Carlile, QC, and solicitor Andrew Shaw, I steeled myself for what I knew I would see—the dismantling of the princess's world had long been complete. But I was still unprepared for the devastating scene of erasure and decay that confronted me when I walked up the main staircase, then went from room to room. Each had been stripped with a disregard that said everything about how the princess had been treated in life.

Nothing had been respected. Workmen had moved in, ripping up carpets, tearing down the silk wall panels that had decorated the drawing room and sitting room, leaving the doors of fitted cupboards hanging off their hinges. Even plug sockets had been removed. There were horizontal gaps where the odd floorboard had been pulled up and left propped against a wall. Newspapers were scattered on the floor. A blue mattress was propped against one wall. Junk lay everywhere. And it was dirty. It seemed that the place hadn't been cleaned in the four years since 1998. A layer of dust covered the once polished banisters, giant cobwebs were spun round grubby cornices, and the air was musty. A once pristine home was now as dark and unhealthy as Charles Dickens had depicted Satis House in Great Expectations.

Those with no reason to care about the princess's world, and the devastation I saw, might have shrugged and said, "Well, she's dead. It's time to move on. Who cares?" But moving on shouldn't mean forgetting.

I could have cried as I walked round those rooms. It was a stark illustration of how quickly some people had wanted to forget her, how eager some people were to remove every vestige of her.

It also represented a lost opportunity. A potential museum of memories had been wrecked.

After Princess Margaret's death in 2002, the administration of her home, Apartment 1A, was transferred to the care of Historic Royal Palaces so that part of her living quarters could be viewed for educational and exhibition purposes. Today, although the place has been stripped of its furniture, the public has the chance to visualize Princess Margaret's life, and study the photographs of her. Would it not have been possible to do the same with Apartments 8 and 9 five years earlier?

Also, when the Queen Mother died in 2002, the Prince of Wales ensured that there was a fitting tribute to his grandmother: he arranged for the World of Interiors magazine to photograph the inside of her home to show how she had lived; to capture her way of life, her tastes and style, for posterity. It was published in October 2003.

That is why I've decided to share with you my photographs, taken inside Apartments 8 and 9.

I took them, with my own camera, in the weeks after the princess's death, for purely sentimental reasons—to preserve what had been a special place to me. They also catalogued the precise location of her possessions, which was useful to me in my role as guardian of her world.

Over the years, the photographs have been a comfort, and have helped me remember details and moments that might have blurred with time. Many people from around the world have written to me, or asked me face to face, what life was like with the boss, how she lived, and what her inner sanctum really looked like. Well, the photographs in this book provide the answer; you will enjoy a virtual tour of Apartments 8 and 9. They show the rooms as she left them.

The Way We Were
Remembering Diana. Copyright © by Paul Burrell. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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