To mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana members of the East Anglian Daily Times have reflected on her visits to Suffolk and Essex and what it was like to report on the tragic news of her death.

The news of the car crash in Paris rocked the world on August 31, 1997, the outpouring of grief that followed a sign of what she meant to the nation.

Members of the East Anglian Daily Times have taken a moment to reflect on the times she visited the region.

Terry Hunt, Editor in Chief of the EADT, said: “Princess Diana was a real icon, a worldwide icon of the 1980s and 1990s so her visits to Suffolk and Essex were very exciting occasions, the public absolutely loved her and we as a newspaper were very excited along with out readers when she came here. “Probably the most memorable of her visits to this part of the world, for me anyway, was in 1996 when she came to the Suffolk Show.

“I do think that still that year’s attendance at the show was a record and that shows what an attraction she was for the general public.”

The news of Diana’s death led to the first Sunday publications of the EADT, Evening Star and Eastern Daily Press newspapers.

Mr Hunt said: “It just felt to me we had a responsibilty to tell our readers what had happened in our own way in a regional context.”