'My youth ended the night Diana died'
When we’re young, summers seem to go on forever, but on 31 August 1997, my youth screeched to a halt. I was 21, a graduate, working in a bar and living with my mum, ekeing out a few extra months of irresponsibility. I remember seeing that famous photo of Princess Diana on the yacht with Dodi Fayed, her long, lean figure so familiar, and thinking, ‘She’s got the right idea.’
While Diana and Dodi were having dinner at the Paris Ritz, I was collecting glasses in a rough east London pub. At the far end of the bar sat Mark*, a beautiful boy I’d known since I was 16, who was turning into something more than a friend.
A gang of us often went back to his place after the pub. That night, Kim* – a friend of Mark’s – was waiting in her car to give us a lift. Seconds after we left the car park, I realised Kim was drunk. Manically laughing, red-light-jumping, driving-over-roundabouts drunk. We screamed at her to stop, but the music was loud and she was wild.
After five terrifying minutes of near misses, she bounced off another car and smashed into a tree. There were six people in those two cars and amazingly no one was badly hurt – I was so relieved.
We relived the story over and over, trying to come to terms with our narrow escape
When the police arrived, Kim failed a breath test. She didn’t have a licence, let alone insurance, and it was her sister’s car. She was arrested.
It was about this time – half past midnight – that Diana’s car crashed into a pillar in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris, although we didn’t know that then. I didn’t want to be alone, so Mark and I walked back to his flat, where the others were waiting to be let in. We relived the story over and over, trying to come to terms with our narrow escape. Mark said he didn’t know Kim was drunk, but I didn’t believe him. I realised I couldn’t be with someone who’d gamble with my safety like that.
I called a cab after a couple of hours, sad that my thing with Mark was over before it had even begun. The driver told me about what had happened in Paris: Dodi was dead; Diana was in hospital. But I didn’t believe she was seriously hurt.
Back home, too wired to sleep, I switched on the TV and saw the headline ‘DIANA DECLARED DEAD’ flash on screen. I started to cry; for Diana, for her sons, and for my own narrow escape. A kind of innocence died in me that night: the belief that everything would be all right. Diana’s death shattered that illusion.
It was the dark days of dial-up and Diana was the last pre-internet superstar. Mine was probably the last generation to come of age in pre-digital freedom; to spend four days at Glastonbury with no make-up, because who takes a camera to a festival? Today, everyone’s a paparazzo. I wonder what she would have been like in the online age. I can imagine the selfies with kids in hospital, excited nans, shy dads. Would Instagram have given her back some of the power she lacked in those last years? Or would self-googling have been a disaster for someone so vulnerable?
Whenever I hear about Diana’s death, I will always think fondly, but sadly, of Mark. I hadn’t seen him or his crowd for 15 years. He was a free spirit who took longer than me to settle down. He never married or had children, but a couple of years ago his Facebook page was suddenly full of a girl he was obviously mad about. Last June, aged 43, he was in her car on a busy A-road. An oncoming driver blacked out and swerved across the road. They didn’t stand a chance.
*Names have been changed
‘He Said/She Said’ by Erin Kelly is published by Hodder & Stoughton (£12.99)
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