A new TV drama will explore why Princess Diana's death meant so much to ordinary people with stars revealing how the tragedy affected them.

Veteran broadcaster Martyn Lewis, who broke the news of the crash on August 31, 1997, spoke of how his daughter woke him at 1am who told him of the accident.

'I knew instantly what it had to be,' he told the Radio Times.

'There was a dark grey suit, white shirt and black tie kept in a wardrobe at the BBC for occasions like this and that's what I changed into to announce the news of her death.'

Ahead of the 20^th anniversary this Thursday Sir Martyn said he couldn't help but be caught up in the emotion.

'Newscasters have to develop an emotional cocoon and I was used to not letting myself be affected by the enormity of stories I read.

'Yet I have to confess that there was a moment I lost it for a brief few seconds. I felt myself start to go when repeating the words Tony Blair spoke about her: "She was the people's princess and that's how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and in our memories forever."'

Actor Neil Morrissey describes the moment he remembers finding out about Diana's death.

'I wasn't particularly a royalist and while nobody likes to see someone's life taken in such a tragic way, I didn't quite get it at first why the nation was in such a furor,' he said.

'Then I couldn't help but be affected by the way everyone was affected. That's the way it caught me — I was carried along with it.'

It comes after a priest close to Princess Diana revealed she would have gone on to marry her Muslim boyfriend Dodi Fayed. Father Frank Gelli was an Anglican priest who was close to Princess Diana before the tragic Paris car crash that claimed her life on August 31, 1997. He told the Sunday Express: 'She wanted to know if it was possible for two people of different religions to marry. I told her it was.'

Gelli said: 'As we spoke her telephone rang. It was obviously Dodi. Her eyes lit up. As she was leaving she asked me if I would be able to perform the service when she got married. Her love was obvious.'

Gelli was the curate at St Mary Abbots church in Kensington, West London, near the Princess' former home at Kensington Palace. He said that Diana had sometimes visited his church and quietly prayed at the back to avoid attention.

Diana and I will be aired on BBC Two on Monday 4 September at 9pm.