Recollections of Dianas death

[AnythingButVanilla]

I was 17, drunk on cheap cider and MD20/20 and had spent the entire night snogging a boy (and my friend's sister) in a dark corner at a house party in Knightswood while someone played Marilyn Manson's Beautiful People over and over and over to drown out the sound of people having sex in the bedroom. Went back to my friend's house with a couple of people and he mum brought us up a pot of tea and some toast about 9am and said that Diana had died. Loved the funeral and all the pomp and ceremony that went with it.

 

[AnythingButVanilla]

That was how I first found out about 9/11, seeing a telly in a shop window. It was before the second plane hit, and all I saw was the tower on fire, and the ticker along the bottom suggesting a rocket attack. I was on my way to Uni to check emails, and by the time I got there we couldn't get on the internet, so I came home and put the telly on and sat there for the rest of the day, gobsmacked.

I was working as an international operator for Cable and Wireless and the first I heard was when a man asked me to connect him to the Cantor Fitzgerald offices in New York. He told me that he was having problems and that a plane had hit the WTC and I was like "no f*cking way". Thank Christ nobody complained about me swearing at him! All the phone lines to America were disconnected that afternoon so it's hardly surprising he couldn't get through.

 

[Hill Wimp]

For 9/11 i walked into the office to find all the admin staff around the TV. When i looked i couldn't understand why they had downed tools and were watching a B movie horror film. I soon learnt why and joined them totally aghast.

 

[glenn forger]

'mangaman' (Norwich fan) of this parish was at the same game. Not seen him around for a while though.
I guess what you saw was something like this...

If I bought a canary that looked like that from a pet shop I'd ask for my money back.

 

[Silver Fox]

I was shocked, not at the news of her death, although I wished her no ill. But at the mass hysteria in the population. She was a rich girl who married a royal and died tragically after the break up of her marriage. Sad but not a disaster!

I felt sorry for William and Harry but also for Diana. It seemed she was treated as nothing more than a brood mare by Charles whilst he was still knobbing that moose he ended up marrying.

 

[byegad]

Sorry Silver Fox, but the impression I got of Diana, long before her death was a rich girl who'd won the jackpot, any spouse of a future king of England is expected to produce an heir and a spare. She did that and wasn't happy with the result. The fact that Charles' heart was elsewhere was sad but something not uncommon among the 'upper class' where marriage is about inheritance, not love.

They live to other rules from the rest of us.

 

[AnythingButVanilla]

Ach I like Camilla. She looks like a right laugh.

 

[robjh]

I got home about 3pm on the Sunday and my wife told me it had been on the radio news that Diana had died in a car crash (why so late in the day? Did we not listen to the radio at all in the morning? It happened in the night so surely the news leaked out earlier than that?). Anyway, I was interested but quite indifferent - I didn't know her, and had never felt she was worthy of the huge media and public attention given to her in her life.
I watched with incredulity as the whole country went increasingly madder over the course the following week. On the following Saturday, the day of the funeral, I was organising a village produce show, and people rang me to ask if it should be cancelled. I am very proud that I insisted on going ahead, and the good-as-normal turnout for the event showed that many other people were prepared to get on with life as normal despite the fever-pitch hysteria that seemed all around us.

 

[RWright]

I was at home that evening just surfing the internet with the TV on in the other room. I heard a special report alert and went in to see what was going on. They were then just reporting she had been in a car wreck and it appeared to be serious. Soon all the channels were reporting on it but they did not have a lot of details. It was early in the morning in the UK and they were commenting that most people there were probably sleeping at the time.

I was glued to the coverage all night and early morning. There was a lot of speculation already starting about what happened and why among the news services. A few hours or so after the initial report they reported she had died. I was sad just because she was a young woman that had lost her life in a car wreck. At the time she was one of the biggest celebrities on the planet, was always put under the spotlights and microscope but she still seemed to do some humanitarian work for causes she felt important. I respected her for that. You could not help but hear about all the other aspects of her personal life but to me they were just that, her personal life, royal or not. For me it was definitely one of those times that you remember where you were at the time.

 

[laurence]

i was at the beeb, GLR as was. we had to keep changing the music as the sombre mood progressed during the week. initially the plan was to go back to 'normal' choices after the wednesday, but that all went out the window.

for the friday and saturday we chose each record that would be played and nothing else was allowed - the chosen tracks were all vetted so as there was no reference to car crashes. seriously, even Tinseltown In The Rain was dropped as it has the line "there's a red car in the fountain".

during the funeral and afterwards i stayed in the studio with the presenter and chose the next track based on track duration and what news feature it was following. one of the memorable moments was looking through the glass at the journalists as they all stopped when a certain track was played. the song was Souvenir by OMD.

it was odd how the whole mood changed during that week. it was impossible not to be influenced by it - despite really not wanting to.

as for the day she died. i woke up and wondered why there was no music on the radio. i realised what was going on and went out for a bike ride - mainly as i knew there'd be nothing on TV or the radio, but also as i wanted to not be in if work called about music choices!

 

[brodiej]

'mangaman' (Norwich fan) of this parish was at the same game. Not seen him around for a while though.
I guess what you saw was something like this...

Come to think of it there was a Norwich fan called mangaman there
Couldn't stand the fellow myself.

 

[Arch]

Ach I like Camilla. She looks like a right laugh.

Yes, so do I. I think I probably identify with her more than anyone glamorous. I was glad when they were finally together. I wouldn't swap with a member of the royal family or the Spencers for all the money in, well, the Civil List.

Maybe now, they have a little more freedom to choose their own way, but back then (god, sounds like last century! Oh. It was...) I don't think they had the chance to run their own lives.

 

[Noodley]

I remember exactly where I was - fast asleep in bed. Mrs N decided to wake me up to tell me. I grunted something along the lines of "and why the f*** are you waking me up to tell me that?" and went back to sleep.

 

[DiddlyDodds]

Nothing good to say about her so will leave it at that

 

[threebikesmcginty]

My experience was much the same.

Did Mrs Noodley wake you up too?