Diana, 10 years on: full coverage

Seven-year-old Sarah Slate squirms and twists the plaits in her hair when asked what she thinks Diana, Princess of Wales, did. “I can’t remember,” she admits. Why was she so good? “She was a very famous person,” she says.

Sarah is one several children lined outside Kensington Palace clutching a pink flower and smiling for the photographers. They have travelled with their mothers from Bexley Village, in Kent, to pay their respects to a woman who died before most of them were born.

Michael James, also 7, doesn’t like princesses and wants nothing to do with them. But “Diana was really nice”, he concedes.

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Stephanie Roberts was three months old when the Princess died. Now ten, she too, thinks Diana was “really nice”.

She says: “I think it’s amazing how everybody loved her and it’s nice that they’re making a memorial for her. I wish I’d known her.”

Nearby, tears seep out from under the glasses of 78-year-old Luba Saicic as she recalls the day she had her glimpse of Diana. One hand strokes a gold crucifix on her chest, the other clutches a knotted ball of tissue. “She was in Brompton Hospital when I was there and she waved. I was only there for a checkup!” she says. “I always remember her and I still cry.”

Sheila Clarke, 63, is equally happy to share her memories of the Princess, a meeting at the VEDay celebrations in 1995. “She was wearing a white suit and hat and was with the boys . . . Oh! And I was at the [birthday] concert as well,” she says. “The lady I iron for gave me tickets. It was wonderful!”

Sheila is the self-appointed head of music at the palace. She has set up her scratched CD player on a small table outside the main gates and is playing four songs on a continuous loop.

Crowds shuffle past a wall of tributes tied to the wrought iron fence to the strains of Sir Elton John’s Candle in the Wind. Frustrated journalists keep asking her to turn it down.

Ms Clarke and Ms Saicic were both there in 1997, when thousands of mourners gathered at Kensington Palace. The flowers, says Ms Saicic, stretched across the gardens and spilled out on to the street. Today, the flowers are fewer. The old and the very young provide the mainstay of the crowd, and they are almost outnumbered by the media. There are barely any teenagers present.

Under a tree a group has gathered around a tiny portable television to watch the memorial service at the Guard’s Chapel in the nearby Wellington Barracks. A kettle boils on a small bunsen burner.

“The Royal Family just doesn’t know how to love,” tuts one lady as she passes round sandwiches and cakes, one eye on the television. “They haven’t been brought up to love.” Another lady in the group, Kathy Martin, starts to describe her Diana collection to anyone willing to listen. She has hundreds of books, she says, and lots of DVDS. “If you’re talking about Diana DVDs, well, I have 300,” someone chimes in.

But Kathy, 45, is not to be outdone. She has every newspaper from the day of Diana’s death and, she points to an overflowing carrier bag, “Look, I’ve got my pile from today already!” In 1997 Kathy camped out at Kensington Palace for three days with her nine-year-old daughter.

Hugh Carroll calls these people, himself included, “the faithful”. He is a graphic designer from Glasgow and every year he creates posters of the Princess to bring to the palace on her anniversary. He is particularly proud of this year’s version.

In the background is a Union Jack on to which he has superimposed an image of the Princess with a child. At the bottom, is a small picture of the murdered schoolboy, Rhys Jones. “Who’s the beautiful lady, Rhys?” it reads. Hugh says: “Rhys was only one [year-old] when Di died. He was just a baby, so he won’t recognise her in Heaven.”

He adds: “Diana is a manifestation of the Christ spirit. In fact, this will probably become the basis of a religion. I call her ‘Christ Diana’.”

He pauses. “These sentiments are wise. They’re worth writing down.”

Where are they now?

Sarah Jane Gaselee Of the four bridesmaids and pageboys who attended the memorial, Sarah Jane Gaselee was the only one who didn't boast an aristocratic lineage. She worked briefly as a nightclub hostess and has recently returned from a campaign to save gorillas in the Republic of Congo. She kept in contact with the Princess after the wedding, but was criticised for selling her bridesmaid's dress to Charles Spencer, the Princess’s brother. She now runs a hotel gift shop in Zimbabwe.

India Hicks The daughter of Lady Pamela Mountbatten and David Nightingale, who witnessed the murder of her grandfather, Earl Mountbatten of Burma. She was only 13 when she followed Diana down the aisle. Ms Hicks was suspended from school for entertaining boys in her room, but went on to enjoy a career as a top model. She now lives in the Bahamas with her partner, David Flint Wood, and their three sons. A fourth child is on the way.

Lord Nicholas Windsor The youngest son of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, Lord Windsor experienced some wilderness years since first appearing in the public eye as an 11-year-old pageboy. He dropped out of Oxford and was the first royal to be cautioned for possessing cannabis. He also has the honour of being the first British royal in 400 years to be married in the Vatican.

Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones The daughter of Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon went on to train as an artist after fulfilling her duty as chief bridesmaid. She married Daniel Chatto, an artist and sometime actor, in 1994 after they met on the set of the 1983 film Heat and Dust.

She is a skilled painter with diplomas from the Royal Academy Schools in London. She now works on her art and cares for sons.

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