The problem with being a newly divorced princess and the most beautiful woman in the world is that men across the globe are aware that you are single again. By the end of the summer of 1996 many high profile or wealthy men began to make their intentions known to the princess. She was flattered, of course, but she already had feelings for someone.

Not that her suitors were aware of that because her recent happiness was a secret. They kept knocking on the door, undeterred by polite refusals or constant excuses.

Being butler at Kensington Palace at this time was like being a flatmate to a platonic female friend, sharing with her the flattery and thrill of the chase, knowing that she was unattainable. My duty now involved fielding calls from the smitten, the downright persistent and the unhappily married. It was my job to know whom she wanted to speak to and whom she didn�t, who had to be let down gently, who had to be told, ��No!��

One day, out of the blue, 50 long-stemmed red roses arrived with a rather over-familiar message attached. The princess first sought my opinion, then gossiped about the gesture with Katherine Graham, who was nearing her 80th birthday but never lost her elegance as publisher of the Washington Post ...

One Oscar-winning Hollywood actor�s confident image suddenly disappeared when it proved he was too shy to ring the palace himself and ask the princess for a date: he got a friend to write a letter on his behalf.

When the princess wrote back, politely refusing, he returned with another request a month later. She had a drink with him and chose never to meet him again.

He wasn�t the only one with honourable intentions. There was a sporting legend, who made a living out of racing in a field of competitors; a leading musician; a novelist; a lawyer; an entrepreneur; a billionaire who ran his own empire, and one extremely famous politician. The unfortunate thing was that while they might have provided the princess with enthralling company, her heart lay elsewhere.

The princess called me the ��steward of the racecourse�� because I helped control the men in her life; deciding, after some serious consultation, who was a live runner in the race and who was lagging behind at the back of the pack.

I was now organising virtually every aspect of her life, but I carried out the duty in a light-hearted manner. I teased her. She teased me. Just as she had compartmentalised certain friendships, she controlled the position of her gentleman friends. We called it ��the trap system��, as if the men were competitors on a racetrack, running round after the princess with their gifts and flowers.

The occupant of trap no 1 never changed. He remained in pole position in the princess� eyes, not threatened by those on the periphery.

Throughout the day, I kept the princess informed about which trap had rung, and at what time. ��Trap no 5 has rung, he wants you to ring him back. Trap no 8 wants to speak to you, shall I put him off again?��

On her writing desk, the princess kept a list of traps and their occupants. In my pantry, a duplicate of the same list, which changed as men fell in and out of favour, was tucked into the back of my desk diary.

Sometimes, the princess could not believe how many suitors were making their intentions known. She used to joke that the racecourse was getting ��a little overcrowded��.

Once I wrote to her: ��There is still serious overcrowding on the racetrack. After further consultation, I have been informed that Traps 8 and 9 are void and have been declared non-runners. One failed the random drung testing; one failed the strict medical examination.��

Then the princess wrote to me. ��Due to serious overcrowding on the ractrack, the judges have asked for a re-evaluation on the contents of the traps and have asked Mr Paul Burrell for his valuable assistance on this sensitive issue!!��

Following what I would call ��a steward�s inquiry��, it became rather empowering to strike a line through the traps containing the lawyer and the politician.

The drawback of being sucked into this royal vortex, and being so close to the princess, was that my life merged into hers. When friends said they would always be there for her, it meant on call 24 hours a day. Being butler and friend placed an even greater expectation on my time.

In September 1996, I had got home late, beyond eleven o�clock again, and was sitting down to a bottle of red wine with Maria [my wife] at the Old Barracks. Just after midnight, the princess rang in tears after a little setback in her personal life.

As I spoke to her, Maria tutted. The princess was asking me to go out and deliver a message to someone following an altercation over the telephone.

Hearing how upset she was, how could I refuse? Even at that late hour, even though I was exhausted, I had to � I wanted to � oblige. As I put down the receiver, I had to tell Maria that the princess needed me to run an errand.

��That�s it. I�ve had enough. You are pathetic!�� she spat.

��But, chuck, you�ve got to understand that she needs me. No one else can help at this hour,�� I said.

��Paul. You baby her. She clicks her fingers and you go running. Well. I�ve had it, I�ve had it with you and I�ve had it with her!�� Maria stormed off to bed as I put on my shoes, pulled on my jacket and went out into the night.

Mission accomplished, I got to bed in the early hours. That morning, I went to work as usual at eight o�clock, wondering if I had ever been to sleep. But the tiredness was worth it when I reached my desk in the pantry and found a note from a far happier boss.

Dear Paul. Not many people would venture out late at night to sort a heart out ... but then, not many people have the kindness and qualities you possess ... I am profoundly touched by your actions last night, and very much wanted you to know that. Times are challenging in this particular home, but one thing is for sure, that is without you at the helm of this ship, we�d all be in bad shape and the laughter gone! So thank you very much for coming to my rescue once again, love from Diana.

I had gone into work almost looking forward to discovering whether or not she had left me a little note. Notes were left on a daily basis around the apartment: instructions, requests, messages or thank yous � she still took time to write down what she could have said to my face or over the telephone.

In the final two years of her life, the princess grew increasingly concerned about the security around her. Ever since the separation in 1992, she felt she had grown in stature, and she was ready to take on the world in her humanitarian mission.

But, rightly or wrongly, she felt that the stronger she became, the more she was regarded as a modernising nuisance who was prepared to go out on a limb and do the unconventional.

She was later to be proved right, to some degree, when her humanitarian work in Angola in early 1997 led to suggestions that she was a ��loose cannon�� who was doing more harm than good.

In the autumn of 1996, she had an overpowering feeling that she was ��in the way��. She certainly felt that ��the system�� didn�t appreciate her work and that, for as long as she was on the scene, Prince Charles could never properly move on. ��I have become strong, and they don�t like it when I am able to do good and stand on my own two feet without them,�� she said.

In one particular period of anxiety, in October 1996, the princess called me from my pantry. I met her half-way down the stairs. A question of self-doubt led to reassurance from me, and one more question led to us sitting on the stairs and talking through her concerns.

She felt there was a concerted attempt by what she referred to as the ��anti-Diana brigade�� to undermine her in the public�s eyes. We spoke about the continuing role of Tiggy Legge-Bourke [nanny to William and Harry, once linked by rumours to Prince Charles]. We spoke about Camilla Parker Bowles and whether Prince Charles really loved her. Inevitably, we spoke about how the princess felt undervalued and unappreciated.

But the basis of the conversation seemed to be her worries about what the future held. She said she was ��constantly puzzled�� by the attempts of Prince Charles� sympathisers to ��destroy me�.

It was a ��down day��, and the princess needed to talk. With all sorts of jumbled thoughts racing through her mind, we went into the sitting room to write it all down and then make sense of it. Again, the pen put her thoughts into some form of therapeutic order.

As the princess sat at her desk, I sat on the sofa, watching her scribble furiously. ��I�m going to date this and I want you to keep it ... just in case,�� she said. For she had another reason to write down her thoughts and present them to me that day. She was, rationally or irrationally, worried about her safety and it was preying on her mind.

She wrote down what she was thinking but didn�t articulate her justification for doing so. I think she would have felt silly, or perhaps embarrassed. She just wanted to put it down. It was, in a way, her insurance for the future.

When she finished the letter, she popped it into an envelope addressed to ��Paul�, sealed it and handed it to me. I read it the next day at home, and thought nothing of it. It wasn�t the first time, or the last, that she would express, verbally or in writing, such concerns to me.

But with the benefit of hindsight the content of that letter has bothered me since her death. For this is what she wrote 10 months before she died in that car crash in Paris.

I am sitting here at my desk today in October, longing for someone to hug me and encourage me to keep strong and hold my head high. This particular phase in my life is the most dangerous, [The princess then identified where she felt the threat and danger would come from] is planning �an accident� in my car, brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry.

I have been battered, bruised and abused mentally by a system for 15 years now, but I feel no resentment, I carry no hatred. I am weary of the battles, but I will never surrender. I am strong inside and maybe that is a problem for my enemies.

Thank you Charles, for putting me through such hell and for giving me the opportunity to learn from the cruel things you have done to me. I have gone forward fast and have cried more than anyone will ever know. The anguish nearly killed me, but my inner strength has never let me down, and my guides have taken such good care of me up there. Aren�t I fortunate to have had their wings to protect me...

After Diana�s death, the inquest that never was

That letter has been part of the burden I have carried since the princess� death. Deciding what to do with it has been a source of much soul-searching.

All I can say is, imagine if that letter had been penned to you by a loved one and then, within the next year, they died in a car crash. In trying to make sense of it, you tend to waver from considering it a wild coincidence to more bizarre, paranoid explanations.

I had hoped that the matter would be put to rest by an inquest into the princess� death � a full examination by a coroner and court in the United Kingdom of the events of August 31, 1997. But for some inexplicable reason there has not been an inquest. If it were anyone else, an inquest would have had to be held and yet that essential, inquisitorial process has been pushed to one side.

In the late summer of 2003, it was announced that an inquest was being planned in Surrey to examine the circumstances, primarily, of the death of Dodi Al Fayed. It was unclear whether that hearing�s scope would include the death of the princess.

Whatever the situation, the lack of an inquest to date, and the attempt by Scotland Yard and the Crime Prosecution Service to destroy my reputation with my Old Bailey trial in 2002, has led me to make the contents of that note public.

I agree that it may be futile in what it achieves because it can do no more than provide yet another question mark. But if that question mark leads to an inquest, and a thorough examination of the facts by the British authorities, it will have achieved something.

Perhaps there is a desire to allow the matter of a British inquest to go away, but that cannot be allowed to happen.