week what may be the greatest outpouring of sorrow and love in history. Even those people who admired the Princess and supported her efforts to free herself from royal protocol and to create a life of meaningful service to humanity for herself must have been stunned by the public outpouring following her gruesome death.

As her funeral takes place in Westminster Abbey there is solace for her two sons, the Spencer family, and her friends in the public's support. Prince Charles and the Royal Family quite sensibly secluded the young princes safely at Balmoral Castle and out of the glare of publicity so that they could deal with their grief in private. They will witness the public grief when they appear at the funeral today.

However we must hope that they have been kept abreast of the public reaction and know of the unprecedented thousands of grieving people who have taken the trouble to sign condolence books and to leave flowers, messages and candles at Althorp, her family home where she will be buried, at the Royal palaces and at British embassies and consulates around the world.

Diana, Princess of Wales, is now an icon; a public figure around whom legends will grow, books will be written, about whom films will be made and for whom places will be named. Memorials are already being created and her burial place will attract people for years to come. She has entered the public realm as the People's Princess.

The Royal Family must be stunned be the public's reaction to the early and tragic death of the young woman they often saw as rebellious and difficult.

They will have great problems now with the image of Prince Charles as the uncaring husband. Their lives will never be the same. They now know beyond all else that the public preferred an outgoing and humanitarian Princess who was not afraid to take both her personal life and her causes to the ordinary people. Each member of the family will have to deal with that in their own way and they will have to give it constant consideration as they prepare her sons, who so startlingly resemble their mother, for their public duties.

The Royal Family already has one example in Princess Anne of what service to charity and to children can do for your image. Once unpopular, the Princess Royal turned her popularity around by quiet and tireless service to the Save The Children Fund. It may be that the Royal Family has to learn to be more "hands on'' and less formal in its approach to the people. Princess Diana was teaching that to her children.

For now and for the rest of their lives the young Princes can take comfort from the public's sympathy and love for their mother. As they adjust to life without their mother's care, they should know the magnitude of public support.

That support may well transfer to them as the People's Princes. That should make their lives a little easier.