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Something strange happened 10 years ago when Diana died in that Paris tunnel. Normally sensible people became part of the biggest wave of mass hysteria to sweep the country during my lifetime. My mother, a lifelong republican, found herself walking through Kensington Gardens, as though drawn by an exterior force, to survey the vast ocean of flowers rotting in their Cellophane wrappers in the late summer heat.
Now it seems extraordinary that shops across the country closed on the day of her funeral - a Saturday. I recall walking through the post-apocalyptic landscape of a deserted shopping street at midday. The shutdown was so complete there was actually nothing else to do but watch the funeral for hours on television. But it seemed there was a logic to it.
Ten years ago, the nation really was in a state of shock. I was shocked. Sitting in a taxi on my way home from the last party of the Edinburgh Festival I was baffled when the driver said: "Bad news, Diana's died." He spoke as though she was a mutual friend and it took a moment or two to sink in. The realisation stunned me.
In the days that followed I thought the building tide of public emotion was a strange and inappropriate thing but I could excuse and explain it by reminding myself how it felt to find out. There was a genuine sense of incomprehension, a vacuum left by her huge media presence and a sense that the natural order had been disrupted.
But yesterday, when I read that the public has been "left out" of the Diana memorial service, I thought, finally, sense had been restored. The giant screens that beamed her funeral to parks full of tearful Londoners won't transmit the pain of her sons tomorrow as they deal with her memory in their own, private way. The princes will also be spared the ordeal of a royal walka-bout afterwards.
For once, the royal family has got it right. Since Diana died, each similarly shocking death has been followed by public outpourings of grief. Just last week an entire football stadium applauded an unknown 11-year-old, days after he was gunned down in Croxteth. The murder of Rhys Jones was a terrible thing, but there is something odd about such mass demonstrations of empathy for strangers.
Today at Kensington Palace the shrine is being rebuilt, though thankfully on a much smaller scale.
Most of us have realised that the events of 10 years ago were a blip, a national nervous breakdown that affected us all. But the cards and flowers are back there on the gates with messages from Diana pilgrims who come each year to remember her, evidence that, for some, grief tourism is a thriving industry.
It's time for the public mourning to end. The daytripping grievers should stay home tomorrow and leave Diana's real friends and family to remember her in peace.
