IT was at 11am on Tuesday, February 24, 1981 that the engagement of the Prince of Wales and the 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer was announced.

The betrothal had been expected since at least the last days of the previous year, but it was instantly the biggest news on the planet.

For the Adver, which was an evening newspaper in those days, the timing couldn’t have been better.

With the nationals long since printed and distributed, and broadcast news limited to a handful of channels, the evening papers had a field day.

“Prince Charles,” we said, “is to marry Lady Diana Spencer, Buckingham Palace announced today. They will wed in the summer – probably some time during the last weeks of July.”

The palace had said: “It is with the greatest pleasure that the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh announce the betrothal of their beloved son, the Prince of Wales, to the Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of the Earl Spencer and the Honourable Mrs Shand-Kydd.”

Like any local newspaper, we looked for and managed to find a local angle to the story. Lady Diana, we revealed, had an ancestor and namesake who lived from 1734 to 1808 and was a resident of Lydiard House.

That Lady Diana, we said, had been the wife of the second Viscount Bolingbroke.

We also congratulated the couple on their engagement in an opinion column whose last words turned out to be truer than we could have imagined: “...she no longer belongs to herself but to our Royal family and their people. Her engagement ring, her haircut, her first public appearance in a hat will excite more attention than the Beatles, the Cup Final or even the weather.”

By the second half of the decade, Diana and her husband would be living separate private lives, although their split would not be announced until late 1993.

As Princess of Wales, Diana would make official visits to Swindon in 1985 and 1989, performing duties including the opening of the Delta Tennis Centre.

Her unofficial visit, in July of 1991, was her final known trip to Swindon.

The princess came to see an unnamed patient at the old Princess Margaret Hospital.

Staff on duty that day have spoken since of her friendliness and approachability at what must have been a time of great personal unhappiness.