Ever lasting regret
As the 20th death anniversary of Princess Diana approaches, global media interest is reaching a feverish pitch. Her sons, William and Harry, have taken part in a television documentary to relive some of their most private moments with their late mother, and to talk, for the first time, about their everlasting regret over their last conversation. The boys were at the British Royal Family’s Scottish retreat, Balmoral Castle, when Diana called them for a chat. She would always keep in touch with her sons, wherever she happened to be, and August 31, 1997, was no exception. A few hours before the fatal car crash in Paris that killed her, she called the boys. At 15 and 13 respectively, the young teenagers were too caught up with their own lives, running about the estate “with their cousins” to stop and talk at leisure with their mother. They were called to the phone. They spoke briefly to their mum, wanting to hurry back to their activities. She wanted to prolong the conversations but they were not in the mood. Both young men said, in the new documentary, that they were left with an “everlasting regret” that they didn’t speak to her longer.
Another person who was devastated by Diana’s untimely death was the British-Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan, who was reportedly, “the only man who jilted Diana”. And not because he didn’t love her but because he valued his privacy. His self-respect did not allow him to be subsumed by her high voltage global status. The two broke up and it is said that Diana took up with Dodi Al-Fayed, the Egyptian playboy millionaire, “to make Hasnat jealous”.
Diana said famously of Dr Hasnat Khan, “everyone sells me out … Hasnat is the only person who will never sell me out.”
True to her prediction, the good doctor has never written a tell-all book about her, never spoken to the press in a revelatory interview and never disrespected her memory. Her 20th death anniversary is no exception, with Dr Hasnat maintaining his silence.