SIR Simon Towneley was the Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire and responsible for looking after the Royals when they visited the county.

And Sir Simon, now 85 and from Cliviger, said that over the years he met Princess Diana he saw a big change in her.

Sir Simon, who was Lord Lieutenant for 20 years from 1976, said: "Over the years she changed very much.

"When she first came she was somewhat of an ingenue and very shy.

"To look at those at those pictures of her in Accrington she looks like a schoolgirl - to think what she became."

What she became was an icon, a darling of the tabloid press and one who was never out of their spotlight.

Throughout several scandals and her divorce she always remained popular with the British public.

And Sir Simon said he was sure where the appeal lay.

He said: "Part of it was that despite being shy she could be very outgoing and she had a sort of glamour which people liked.

"I think she had a rapport with the public. She had a wonderful touch with people, some people just do.

"I do think that towards the end of her life when she tried to manipulate the media.

"Her manipulation must have been an element that contributed to the attention she got."

Sir Simon sees her death as this generation's equivalent of the assassination of John F Kennedy in Dallas some 30 years before.

For Sir Simon he heard the news after a dinner party in Oxfordshire.

He describes the incomprehension he felt and his generation's difficulty in initially understanding the public outpouring of grief that followed her death in a Parisian underpass.

Sir Simon added: "I think the Royal Family handled it very well.

"I suppose the Queen and Prince Charles were wondering how to deal with the two princes, that's why they didn't rush to London from Scotland right away.

"The older generation felt the younger one was being a bit mawkish, but once people realised there was something serious about this mawkishness the mood changed."