Fashion designer Paul Costelloe was at work in his London showrooms in 1985 when he got the call. "It was one of the princess's ladies-in-waiting," he said yesterday from his home in Monkstown, Co Dublin. "She asked me to bring a part of my collection over to Kensington Palace."
The meeting was the beginning of what Mr Costelloe describes as a "friendly business relationship" which lasted more than a decade. His first impressions were of a "very normal, warm, courteous, relaxed, polite and pleasant English woman".
Mr Costelloe was called to her home "on average every two years" he says; every time he arrived she thanked him for coming "all the way" from Ireland. "She didn't quite grasp that I was actually based in London during the week." Their meetings largely concerned the minutiae of the clothes. "Sleeve lengths and skirt lengths had to be right because some of the countries she was visiting had strict dress codes." The princess took her commitments "very seriously", said Mr Costelloe.
At the end of each visit the princess would help the designer carry "grubby garment bags" down to where his minicab was waiting. "She would often stop and shake hands and joke with the cab driver. She always talked and smiled at people a lot," he said.
But despite the relaxed exterior, Mr Costelloe sometimes sensed that something "wasn't quite right" with her. "It wasn't anything that she said because we rarely discussed personal matters," he said. "But Diana sometimes appeared like a seagull who had one, or maybe even two of its wings clipped."
Mr Costelloe was half asleep when he heard the news of her death. "It is such a great loss," he said. "She was like a lighthouse that both intrigued people and inspired love . . . Now that light has gone out. It is a great loss."