Hello and thank you for downloading our history program witness from the BBC World Service with me for Hana Hiver.

And today we're going back to January 1997, one one of the world's most famous women,

Diana, Princess of Wales, walk through a live minefield in Angola to highlight

the dangers of landmines. I've been hearing from Paul Hesselop, who helped organize the princess's iconic visit to the former war zone in

Southwest Africa.

Our entire focus was about keeping her safe.

I mean, I did not want to be on the front page of the news the next day as the man who blown

up Princess Diana. In January 1997 Paul Hesselop was the program manager in Angola for the British

D-mining organisation the HALO Trust.

He'd worked for the non-governmental organisation for three years,

but news of the impending arrival of the high-profile celebrity visitor took him totally by surprise.

Around the third or fourth of January I got a call from my mother early in the morning saying

Princess Diana's coming to visit

HALO in Angola to which I replied to him.

My mom, my mom, the program manager, I'd know if

Princess Diana was coming to visit.

And then about an hour later she ran back again and said, no, no no it's on the BBC she's coming to visit

halo in and go I'm like my program manager I would know if she was coming to visit so I

rang up halo headquarters and they said no no we'd know if she was coming and then my mum rang back again and said no no it's

now on every news outlet and she's visiting HALO and the Red Cross and that just triggered

the switch so I jumped in my car and drove over to the

International Committee of the Red Cross and confronted their public information

...