Althorp

On August 31, 2026 we remember Diana, Princess of Wales. It is her 29th memorial day. 🤍 Diana shook the hand of a man with Aids when many believed touch could infect you. 10 years later she walked through a minefield so the world would look. 🏥 In 1987 London opened Britain's first Aids ward. The government campaign warned: Don't die of ignorance. Staff there hid their job from their own families. Diana opened it and shook a patient's hand. Without gloves. The photo went round the world. 👧 In 1989, 7 children in Harlem had Aids. One was 7 years old and wore blue pyjamas. Diana picked the child up. ✈️ The same year she wanted to visit a leprosy hospital. Officials and press warned her off; leprosy scared people too. Diana flew to Indonesia anyway, sat on the patients' beds and touched their wounds. Again without gloves. 🤝 The Leprosy Mission then asked her to be its patron. She stayed for 7 years, to the end. 🕊️ In 1992 she went into a home for the dying in Calcutta. That December her separation was announced. Her first journey after that went to a leprosy hospital: 110 beds above the Kathmandu valley. She came alone. 💣 In January 1997 Diana walked through a minefield in Angola, at San Antonio near Huambo. She wanted the world to look. What remains: • 1987: Britain's first Aids ward, opened by her - the handshake without gloves • Patron of The Leprosy Mission from 1990 until her death • In 1996 she gave up almost 100 patronages - 6 stayed, The Leprosy Mission among them • January 1997: the walk through the minefield near Huambo • Nelson Mandela said in 2002 that she transformed public attitudes • The minefield is cleared - today a street where children walk to school Thank you, Diana. Forever remembered. 🕯️ 📷 Moving images: City of Vancouver Archives, Expo 86, CC BY 3.0, via the Internet Archive. Photographs (cropped, edited), via Wikimedia Commons: West Midlands Police, John Mathew Smith (3×) - CC BY-SA 2.0 · John MacIntyre / Paisley Scotland, Sean Sutton / MAG - CC BY 2.0 · Nick Parfjonov (2×), George Bush Presidential Library - public domain. This video is therefore itself licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 🎵 Music: Borodin, String Quartet No. 2, III. Notturno - Musopen String Quartet, CC0.

Did you know? On 9 April 1987, Diana, Princess of Wales, opened Britain's first dedicated HIV/AIDS unit — and shook the hand of an AIDS patient, without gloves. At a time when many believed a single touch could infect you, it was a quiet revolution. With that one gesture she did more against the fear than many a public campaign.