A SOMBRE Prince of Wales flew home from Paris with the body of his former wife Diana, Princess of Wales, last night to prepare for official mourning and a possible state funeral.

He was greeted at RAF Northolt by Tony Blair, who had earlier spoken of his utter devastation at the death of the "People's Princess" after a car crash that also killed her companion Dodi Fayed and their French chauffeur.

At 7 pm, the doors of the BAe 146 aircraft were opened and the coffin, draped in the Royal Standard surmounted by a single wreath of white lilies, was brought out and borne across the tarmac by eight RAF pallbearers, the silence broken only by the slow tread of boots.

There was no ceremony, no words spoken. Prince, Prime Minister, the Princess's two sisters, the Lord Chamberlain the Earl of Airlie, the Defence Secretary George Robertson and Lord Bramall, the Lord Lieutenant of London, stood in line with heads bowed as a brisk breeze chilled the dying light of the day.

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Twelve minutes later, the coffin had been placed in the back of a hearse and driven away to a private mortuary. After a few words of thanks, the Prince returned to the aircraft for the flight back to Aberdeen and his sons at Balmoral. The Princess's body was moved to the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace just after midnight.

By then, Mr Fayed had been buried at Brookwood ceme tery, Woking. His coffin, draped in black cloth with gold lettering, was flown back to Britain on his family's jet and taken to Regent's Park Mosque where 600 mourners had gathered for a simple funeral lasting just under ten minutes.

The coffin was then taken to Brookwood for a longer private family burial service. The ceremony took place just before 10pm, thus complying with Muslim beliefs which require that burial should take place within 24 hours of death. Mr Fayed's father, the Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed, had been offered two plots and spent a few minutes making his choice while the six-car funeral cortege waited at the cemetery entrance.

Details of the Princess's funeral are expected to be announced by Buckingham Palace today after talks with her family. The Palace is considering calls for a full state funeral, normally reserved for heads of state, and was also consulting Downing Street. A state funeral would be widely welcomed by the public, but if that were ruled out the Princess would proba bly be given a large public funeral followed by a private interment attended only by close members of her family.

Yesterday thousands of mourners gathered at Buckingham and Kensington Palaces and outside the Paris hospital where the 36-year-old Princess died, as political leaders from across the globe paid tribute to one of the world's best-known and most admired women. Radio and television stations scrapped their schedules and substituted continous news programmes, and even radio stations that normally pump out rock and pop switched to more sombre music as details of the accident unfolded. Sporting fixtures were cancelled.

On the political front, a temporary truce has been declared and campaigning suspended in the Scottish and Welsh devolution polls. The Scottish referendum due on September 11 may be delayed if it is felt to be too close to the funeral - a move that might necessitate a recall of Parliament, since the dates were fixed by legislation.

President Clinton, President Mandela and Mother Teresa of Calcutta all spoke of their personal sadness at the Princess's death. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, said the world had lost a "vibrant, lovely young person" and Mr Blair seemed to choke with emotion outside the church in his Sedgefield constituency as he said: "I feel like everyone else in this country today. I am utterly devastated." Baroness Thatcher said: "A beacon of light has been extinguished."

There was bitterness, however, from the Princess's brother, Earl Spencer, and Mr Fayed's father, who minced no words in blaming the media and paparazzi for the deaths. The couple whose romance had dominated the tabloid press for much of the summer had apparently been trying to escape a pack of paparazzi on motorcycles when their car crashed, and Lord Spencer said from his home in Cape Town that every editor and proprietor who had paid for intrusive and exploitative photographs of the Princess, encouraging ruthless and greedy individuals to risk everything in pursuit of her, had blood on their hands.