THE mother of a six-month-old baby recovering from open-heart surgery was shocked when Princess Diana made an unannounced visit to his hospital ward a few months before her death.

Denise Curran from Park North slept in a room next to her only child Martin O’Malley during his eight-day stay at Brompton Hospital after he had an operation to repair a hole in his heart in April 1997.

The princess, who died 20 years ago today after a crash in Paris, visited a few days later on May 6 with no bodyguards and no paparazzi.

Denise, 46, remembers that unexpected meeting vividly.

She said: “It was a very private and personal experience, there was no furore or fuss.

“She was very tall and slim, dressed in red, and she was so patient and full of compassion and empathy, just a normal mum.

“She came to visit a ten-year-old girl on the ward who had heart and lung problems but she spoke to us too.

“I’m a massive Princess Diana fan, she was amazing and I was thrilled to bits to meet her.

“The ward was absolutely buzzing with excitement afterwards.”

The visit came at the end of an extremely emotional time for Denise as complications during the birth of her son had put his life at risk.

She added: “I was in labour for a long time and I didn’t even get to hold him, he had the cord wrapped round his neck and they had to take him away. Then a few days later the cardiologist and consultant told us he had a hole in his heart which was too big to stitch.

“I asked what would happen if we did nothing and he basically said that Martin would be fine for a while but would drop dead when he’s 12.

“The hole was the size of a five-pence coin which, in such a small baby, is huge, so they had to put gauze in between the ventricles to fix it.”

It was a very stressful experience for the family.

Denise added: “They said it was a fairly straightforward operation but it seemed like a massive treatment because they had to break his little ribs and stop his heart temporarily and I worried about something going wrong.

“When you have a baby, it’s the most perfect thing in the world and his dad and I felt blessed, but it became a life-and-death situation.

“He still has scars but he’s fine now, thank God.

“He’s played rugby for his school and never had any lasting damage or repercussions from the operation.”

Martin is now a fit and healthy 20-year-old who’s just finished his first year studying English at Southampton University.

Though, of course, he doesn’t remember meeting Princess Diana, he reflects on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity he had to meet a member of the royal family.

Martin said: “It’s quite surreal, she’s such a big part of British culture, though I didn’t understand the importance of the visit until a few years later.

“It was a privilege, really.”

His mum described how the family felt when the princess died four months after she met them.

Denise said: “For her to die so tragically was absolutely devastating, I couldn’t believe it.

“So many people connected with her on a personal level even though they never met her.

“We paid our respects at Kensington Palace and laid flowers, it was part of the nation’s grieving process.”

They often go on walks to Hampton Court near their home in Kingston-upon-Thames and stop by Windsor Castle when they visit relatives in Swindon.