Andrew Smith was editor of The Northern Echo when he was asked to represent the people of the North-East at Diana's funeral 20 years ago today. Here he remembers that most extraordinary day

TWENTY years on, it seems like only yesterday that I witnessed history being written at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales.

I was there, in Westminster Abbey, as a representative of the people of North-East England through my good fortune to be editor of The Northern Echo.

Not only was I in the abbey, but I was seated a mere 14 rows behind the Queen and members of the Royal family in the South Transept.

Above us all loomed the Princess’s coffin on a high catafalque surrounded by four large candles, draped in the Royal Standard and bearing three sprays of white flowers.

I remember as clearly as if the coffin was before me now thinking that here, almost within touching distance, lay the remains of our beautiful Princess Diana – young, blonde, attractive, vulnerable, compassionate and fun; a woman I felt I knew as intimately as members of my family, at the time a beacon of light and a symbol of hope, all taken from us in a moment of madness in a Paris subway.

I wished I had met her before this.

At once the funeral turned from a surreal, pinch-oneself experience into an expression of personal grieving and of bidding goodbye. Diana was ours, the People’s Princess, our Queen of Hearts, and her loss touched many of us intimately.

Here in the abbey, among the great and the good, celebrities, charity workers and people such as me, representing communities throughout the world, the tragedy of the tormented and hounded princess’s life and passing became tangible.

My thoughts were of the privileged but basically ordinary girl plucked from obscurity to become the most famous woman in the world – then and even now. Surely she wouldn’t have chosen all this attention and ceremony for herself or her boys. I felt for Diana and Princes William and Harry.

My journey to the abbey began at the regular Wednesday afternoon management meeting at The Northern Echo, when we were interrupted by a colleague saying that the Lord Chancellor’s office was on the phone asking if the editor could attend Princess Diana’s funeral that coming Saturday as a representative of the people of the North-East of England.

Fleetingly, I felt it was an intrusion, taking me away from working on the biggest story of my career but, equally rapidly, I realised it was a huge honour for The Northern Echo and myself as editor, placing me within the story, and the invitation was accepted.

I travelled to London on an early train from Darlington and on leaving the tube at Embankment was struck by the silence on the streets.

I wrote in the Echo at the time: “Only when Westminster is reached does the occasion snap into sharp focus as lane upon lane of weary onlookers huddle against steel barriers.

“And the silence is striking. Thousands and thousands of people – not many children and not many elderly – stand in the morning sunlight, silent. The only sound is that of a police helicopter high above.”

On arriving at the abbey, I was shown into the South Transept, where the first six rows were reserved for a full turnout of Royals. The rest of us filed into the remaining rows in turn.

I recall being seated among many famous people whom I imagined would have had preferred positions in the main body of the church. Maybe the representative of the people of the North-East did rank as a ‘somebody’ after all.

My report in the Echo stated: “A girl two rows in front with reddish hair carefully groomed to look untamed turns around, looks hard and smiles warmly. Her face is familiar, a former colleague perhaps. Much later, the penny drops, it's Ruby Wax, known to me, not I to her, but thanks for the smile.

“Clive James sits three rows away, Mark Phillips four in front and Lord Snowdon slightly along from him. Henry Kissinger is less than the length of a peace treaty away.”

Other vivid memories include the rhythmic sound of the footsteps of the eight Welsh Guardsmen carrying Diana’s coffin as they entered the abbey out of my sight, the moving rendition of Elton John’s reworked Candle in the Wind and, of course, Earl Spencer’s scything eulogy to his sister in which the media, establishment and Royal family were condemned in equal measure for their treatment of her. It was followed by the applause we all inside the abbey ached to give, but it spilled in from the thousands of people on the streets outside and eventually was embraced by the majority in the church.

Attending Princess Diana’s funeral was the most memorable occasion of my hugely-rewarding career as a journalist.

It was also the most emotional, saying farewell to the People’s Princess on behalf of her people in the North-East. May she rest in peace.