Today we look at how Diana touched the lives of some of the people of Bradford and ask: Is it time the grieving stopped?

Last September's staggering public show of sorrow and affection was anticipated by none of the media's experts.

The media, like the Royal family, was caught out. This may explain why so many national newspapers as well as TV stations have published and broadcast their Princess Diana anniversaries far in advance of the date of her actual death.

But again, have they miscalculated the public mood?

Cardinal Basil Hume said on Radio 4 that the time had come for the media hype to end, meaning that people should be left to get on with their lives.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Leeds, the Right Reverend David Konstant, whose diocese includes all of the Bradford Metro District, acknowledged the importance of remembering and marking the anniversary of her death, but added: "I would want to highlight the good she did, by her compassion which literally means 'to suffer with'. Her strength was she was with people. She shook the hand of that fellow who had AIDS and changed people's attitude to AIDS.

"She was good at that because that was what she did instinctively. She understood why people were hurting and how they were hurting. In a small way I saw this myself when she came to Leeds to visit St Gemma's Hospice.

"Another thing it's important for us to appreciate was her immense vulnerability. This was what attracted people to her. She wouldn't have been so compassionate if she hadn't been so vulnerable, and she wouldn't have been so vulnerable if she hadn't have been so compassionate."

A recent poll found the nation to be in a pretty level-headed frame of mind about the anniversary.

Seventy-five per cent of interviewees thought Britain was no better than it was a year ago; 80 per cent said the Princess's death had not changed the way they thought about life; and 53 per cent of them declared that the anniversary of her death should not be specially marked every year.

The other Sunday, a charity walk along the six-mile route of her funeral cortege failed to attract the emotional thousands hoped for by the organisers: only about 300 turned up.

Ordinary people made their statement at the appropriate time last year; calculatedly to repeat what was spontaneous looks like bad taste.

Psychologist Professor Dominic Abrams offers the following explanation for the millions of floral tributes, the candles, the make-shift shrines, the vigils outside London's royal palaces last September.

"The mass displays of altruism and generosity show that, contrary to Mrs Thatcher's pronouncements, society does exist, at least in people's minds. They want to be part of a large social process, not mere observers of it," he wrote in a paper for the British Psychological Society.

Does the public's apparent coolness now mean that we'll forget all about her? No, says Harold Brookes-Baker, publishing director of Burke's Peerage.

"I think the Princess of Wales's final image will last forever, in a year or two.

"She was the most romantic figure the world has ever known. She will always be remembered with nostalgia. There are so many instances beautiful to man-kind that everyone, including pragmatic politicians, will see the significance of her memory."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.