Today it is 13 years since Diana, Princess of Wales died. I hadn't realised this until I was reminded on Twitter about it. As with most significant events, I can remember the day and the week that followed as clear as day.
I got up on the Sunday morning and wandered into the living room where my parents were sat watching a rolling broadcast from BBC News. This was unusual in itself as mum and dad never really watched the television this early on any morning, never mind a Sunday. Dad had turned the radio on when he woke up and when he found out they immediately went into the living room to watch the rolling bulletin. This was our family transfixed for the next couple of hours. I think we even had breakfast in the front room which was unheard of. Nanna called up at about 9:30 as was the usual Sunday ritual. She obviously didn't know anything so we pointed her in the direction of Ceefax (the News programming must have stopped or had a break at this point). I can still hear her say that "Oh" now.
This was a rare Sunday where I wasn't at work. It was the back end of the summer holidays from college so there was no homework to speak of. I therefore spent most of the morning flicking between the television channels and various radio stations I could pick up. All normal programming had been replaced with more sombre and appropriate content. This reaction was to last the whole week leading up to the funeral. Never before in my 17 years had I seen this happen. It was really quite interesting watching the various media outlets react to the situation. I actually spent most of the day taking this all in. Even when we ventured out in the afternoon for a bit of shopping, I made sure that the radio was on in dads car. Every shop we went in had the radio on. I was also a little surprised to find that the UK Top 40 wasn't broadcast as this was always on at 4pm on a Sunday, a usual programme which I listened to at the time. Mark Goodier instead kept up the theme of playing ballads and such like. I think that this was the only time in its history that the charts had been pulled from its schedule.
As the week went the funeral details were announced for the following Saturday morning. Notices were put up on the buses I used to travel on to my part-time job, saying that they would stand still for 2 minutes at 11am on the day as a mark of respect. I later found that the supermarket I worked for wasn't actually going to open until 2pm, after the funeral was over. Again this was such a surprise to me as it made an exception to the "open all hours" policy that was in place at the time. This also made the offering of the bus company seem inadequate. As virtually all shops and outlet closed until after the ceremony that Saturday, I like to think that those buses ran empty for that morning.
The death of Diana, Princess of Wales was the first time I can remember books of Condolence been made and huge crowds of people wanting to leave messages in them. I know that we had one and a fair number of people contributed.
On the day I watched the ceremony with mum and dad. In effect it was a state funeral and again it was the first time I had witnessed one. I watched all of it until they left church and then I had to leave for work. That bus journey has got to have been the most solemn journey I've ever made. It was just so quiet everywhere. No traffic anywhere or people going about their daily lives. When I got to work we had be let in by the Duty Manager as the doors were locked, at 1:40pm in the afternoon! I was lucky in that I was due to do a full days work and I only had to do 3 hours. Some people who were due to finish before the 2pm opening didn't even have to go in. Some other people that were on a different bus route to me had to be picked by the Duty Manager as the local family firm providing their service had decided not to run any buses to their small village. The afternoon flew by as we were busier than normal for a Saturday afternoon for obvious reasons.
When I returned home I remember my mum complaining that dad had watched the funeral precession all the way up to Althorp where Diana was buried and that he wouldn't get on and do something else. I think that by this time she was fed up with how much coverage there had been over the week and how much the public had got involved.
I can't really recall anything past that evening, probably because the public went back to leading their lives.
I wonder whether we will see anything like it again. It certainly was a memorable week and one which will stick with me forever.
Going back to the media reaction on that Sunday, Matthew Rudd describes in detail here what he had to do as a radio presenter who was on-air in Sheffield at the time of the announcement. Give it a read, it's very interesting.
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