This one is only peripherally a Diana story.
When I was 13 my parents sent me and my friend, both naive little boys from Africa, across the sea to stay with Diana. How overwhelming it was: the big city, the amazing loft, the people, the animals.
Diana’s then husband Bob took the two of us to see a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. We got on the subway at West 4th St, and happened to be in the last carriage of the train. I was transfixed, staring out the back window at the lights retreating down the tunnel.
We pulled into a station, which I now know was 34th St (where Madison Square Garden is), and as the train pulled out with me still at the back window, I saw Bob and my friend standing on the platform, mouths agape in shock.
Always the bright spark, I thought “well I’ll just get off at the next stop and walk back to them”.
The next stop is 42nd St, in the 1970’s was not the place it is now; certainly not a place for a 13 year-old boy, and most definitely without line-of-sight back to 34th St (as my desert savannah trained brain might have thought.)
Undaunted though I set off to find my lost guide and friend. Many helpful punters offered me sights I could never have imagined, “peeps” at this and that, and substances I could only guess at. But none could guide me home.
After several hours it finally dawned on me to call Diana collect. She was frantic and had mobilized half of New York to find me.