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SEPTEMBER 11, 1997 SPECIAL REPORT: PRINCESS DIANA, 1961-1997 DIANA'S FLOWER POWER An army of volunteers at St. James's Palace, Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace and the Al Fayed family-owned Harrods department store began sorting out messages of condolence taken Thursday morning from the carpet of flowers that have been left in memory of Princess Diana. Boy and girl scouts, cab drivers and dozens of volunteer societies are helping in the huge flower-clearing operation. Removal is expected to take days. Flowers found still to be fresh will be taken by black cabs to London hospitals and nursing homes. Decaying blooms will be mulched to use for fertilizer for future flowers in Kensington Gardens, adjacent to Diana's home. Condolence cards, poems, notes and letters will be sifted and stored in boxes, while teddy bears and other toys will be collected and distributed to needy children. PRINCES: BACK TO SCHOOL Prince William and Prince Harry have returned to school, 12 days after the death of their mother, Princess Diana. St. James's Palace, home of their father, Prince Charles, said that the heir to the throne had taken William, 15, back to Eton and 12-year-old Harry to Ludgrove School on Wednesday. Britain's newspapers appeared to be abiding by their recent promise not to intrude on the young princes. No photos of the return to school appeared in early editions Thursday. DRIVER'S DANGEROUS COMBO Diana's and Dodi Al Fayed's driver, Henri Paul, ingested a dangerous cocktail of alcohol and prescription drugs, prosecutors said Wednesday, a combination doctors say can cause drowsiness, trouble concentrating and impaired vision. A third blood test to determine the blood-alcohol level of Paul detected fluoxetine -- the antidepressant best known as Prozac -- and Tiapride, used to prevent aggression and treat alcoholism. Both medications can cause drowsiness when combined with alcohol. "Prudence in the use of these medications is normally recommended to drivers," the prosecutors' statement said. NBC News reported that a lawyer for the Al Fayed family, which employed Paul as a security guard at Paris' Ritz Hotel, conceded that Paul should probably not have gotten behind the wheel of a car. DRIVER'S MOTHER SPEAKS The mother of Princess Diana's driver said in an interview published Thursday in the Paris daily Le Figaro that her son did not suffer from alcoholism or depression despite tests showing he had drugs used to treat those illnesses and high blood-alcohol levels in his system. "My son wasn't an alcoholic," the paper quoted Gisele Paul as saying. "Can one imagine that the Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed would have agreed to get in a car driven by someone who is drunk?" |
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-STEVEN M. SILVERMAN -PEOPLE DAILY | ||||||
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