A south west London priest has opened up about his relationship with Princess Diana, 20 years after her death.
Father Frank Julian Gelli, who worked as a curate at Kensington’s St Mary Abbots Church, had multiple conversations with Diana just months before she died in 1997, and has spoken of how she was “head over heels” in love with Dodi Fayed.
Father Frank, who has also written a book in tribute to the Princess, describes his side of her and expressing her words ‘from where she is now’.
Speaking about the legacy she left, Father Frank said: “Diana was not a saint, in fact in my book that I’ve written I’ve said how she is in purgatory, and she’s just being purified.
“There are people with an agenda, who want to rub out the truth about Diana and they want to make her out in a way that does not correspond to my experience of her.
“Diana said in the famous interview she won’t go quietly and I feel that she has not gone quietly even after she died, she’s still with us.
“Her soul is very restless, so I wanted to do something. I thought about if there was a way of making Diana speak, but also stressing the element of healing and purification.”
Father Frank first noticed Diana when she attended his services at St Mary Abbots in July 1997, and
“I looked up in her general direction and she had bodyguards in the background, but she got up and came towards me. I remember how shy I was, but we exchanged a brief pleasantry.
“For a fraction of a second I wondered if she was an impersonator.”
The priest also believes he has even felt her presence at times in the years since her death.
He said: “I wanted to spread the message as well as a dedication to this extraordinary woman, who has been haunting me at times, I have felt the strain as she comes back, as if she is really with me.
“It is not to the point where I am having visions, but she meant a lot to me.”
Father Frankly fondly recalled his memories of her, of how easy she was to talk to, and how quickly she warmed to him.
He said: “She was the kind of person who you feel her charisma. She was very beautiful, there was something extraordinary about her.”
“I think she was very insecure because she kept asking me, ‘what do you think? What do you think?’
“It was a question she spoke of all the time. She was concerned about the children and what would have happened if she’d married Dodi, which she told me she wanted to do.”
