Channel 5 reflects on Diana’s last summer

Harry and Meghan have been making headlines, Princess Anne’s 70th birthday was recently marked by an ITV documentary, and the Queen’s lockdown speech reminded us of her ability to bring the nation together.

But arguably no current royal has captured the public’s imagination quite like Diana, Princess of Wales.

She was still only 19 when her engagement to Prince Charles turned her into one of the most famous and photographed women in the world, and her death in 1997 at just 36 led to an extraordinary outpouring of grief.

Now, Channel 5 is reflecting on her life and legacy with three documentaries broadcast on consecutive evenings, beginning with Diana: Her Last Summer.

As the title suggests, it focuses on the final months of her tragically short life, when it seemed as if Diana, freed from the restraints of royal life, was finding a new confidence as she searched for a new role and purpose.

It was a time that saw her throwing herself into her humanitarian work, auctioning off her gowns for charity, and visiting her mentor Mother Teresa (who would die just days after her).

However, Diana’s public achievements would be overshadowed, at least in some sections of the media, by her complicated personal life.

Her romance with Dodi Al-Fayed was splashed across the papers and their deaths in Paris would mean their names were forever linked. However, some people have suggested she was still hoping to be reunited with the man she had dubbed Mr Wonderful, Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan.

Here, biographers and royal correspondents Andrew Morton, Jennie Bond, Penny Junor and Richard Kay give their take on the events of the summer of 1997, while first-hand accounts from butler Paul Burrell, bodyguard Ken Wharfe, private secretary Patrick Jephson and favourite driver and bodyguard Colin Tebbutt offer an insight into the Princess’s life at Kensington Palace.

The documentary also hears from The Sunday Times’s Roya Nikkhah and political heavyweight Alastair Campbell, who reflect on her legacy and the woman she might have become had she lived.

The mini-season of documentaries continues on Thursday with Diana: Queen of Hearts?, which explores her charity work, including the moment in 1987 when she shook hands with an Aids patient. It was a simple gesture that helped to change attitudes, but the documentary also asks whether, as her marriage collapsed, Diana may have also looked to good causes to shape her public image.

Finally, on Friday, Diana: A Mother’s Love centres on her relationship with her sons, William and Harry. Diana’s own upbringing may have been privileged, but she had still come from a broken home, and she wanted to keep her sons’ childhoods as normal and loving as possible.

But while there were happy times, the documentary reveals how she would sometimes find herself at odds with tradition – and the press. Experts also discuss the effect of her death on William and Harry, and the way her legacy will continue to shape a new generation of royals.

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