‘Golden ray of light landed on Princess Di’s coffin’, says former Sun Royal Correspondent who tells of sorrow at Westminster Abbey at her funeral
I WAS sitting two rows behind the Fayeds facing towards where the Royal Family, led by the Queen, would sit.
All around were the most famous of faces, but Diana, even in death, was a bigger star than the others put together.
All eyes were on the royals, particularly William, then 15, and Harry, 12.
William has the same distinctive characteristic of his mother, lowering his head while his eyes gaze nervously everywhere.
Every so often he raised a finger to his furrowed brow, a Royal Family trait of hiding their true emotions – but there was no disguising his torment.
Harry could hardly take his eyes off his mother’s coffin as he sat just six feet away.
He tried to hide his grief but it was when Sir Elton John sang his reworked version of Candle In The Wind that Harry finally gave up his attempts at self-control.
As Elton sang the line, “Your candle’s burned out long before your legend ever will”, Harry buried his face in his hands.
Then came probably the most uncomfortable moment for the royals and the press, when her brother Charles Spencer delivered his eulogy.
Once he had finished his, at times devastating, address, there was a moment of silence.
It was suddenly broken by a sound, which I first thought was rain hitting the roof, despite the bright sunshine outside.
It was a ripple of applause, which started outside from the crowds and grew and grew until it was a thunder that spread into the abbey as mourners joined in.
William and Harry clapped, too, unlike their father.
At the end, as we rose in the abbey to hear the Dean of Westminster “commend our sister Diana to the mercy of God”, a single golden sunbeam came through a window high in the vaulted nave and landed on
Diana’s coffin – even to the end she was still in the spotlight.
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I have been seen by many as a hard-nut journalist and a tough Scot brought up on the mean streets of Glasgow – a reputation of which I am not ashamed.
But I had barely gone 200 yards when I found a quiet corner and I cried.
The enormity of what had happened in the last terrible seven days had finally caught up with me. It was my turn to grieve for Diana.
Despite her flaws, Britain lost a great ambassador on that dreadful night and we also lost a friend, whether we met her or not.