DIANA'S kindness touched people all over the world, none less than cancer suffered Marilyn Eckton who was probably one of the last people to hear from her before her death.

Marilyn, a former education administrator, received numerous words of support from the late Princess, including her final letter on August 5, less than four weeks before her death.

In it, lady-in-waiting Mrs Colin MacMillan wrote on Diana's behalf: "The Princess was delighted to hear that you have now completed your course of chemotherapy and hopes that you continue to make good progress at the Royal Preston Hospital.

"The Princess of Wales has asked me to thank you for taking the trouble to write and to send you her best wishes."

Marilyn was thrilled to hear from her favourite Royal: "Di wrote to me from the South of France," she said: "She took the time to answer while she was on holiday."

The letter was just one of many Diana sent to Marilyn to give her a boost while she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

In another correspondence, she sent a photo with the personal hand-written message: "Dear Marilyn, lots of love from Diana."

Marilyn, 52, said she kept the photo at her bedside during a painful mastectomy operation last year: "It gave me great inspiration and great courage to overcome my illness. She will never know how much that gesture helped," said the mother-of-two: "To think that she took the time to do that."

It's now just one of hundreds of mementoes dotted around her home in Clifton near Preston. She also has around 250 books about the Royals and a scrap book of her correspondence with Diana.

Now Marilyn who is still weak from her treatment and unable to stand for a long time, plans to go to London to pay her final respects to the woman she described as a "Princess of our times, and one for the future as well, she would have been great," she mourned.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.