1September1997

1 September 1997
My dear folks,

I was in charge of the newsroom output one Saturday night last month when the service was desperately short-handed. I had a brief word with one of the bosses beforehand to point out that no-one on the team, myself included, had been through the ferociously complex obituary rehearsals required in case of royal deaths. There would normally be 3 people on each team who were familiar with them. In view of the Queen Mum’s advanced age, there was a real danger of a royal death at short notice, not something to be taken lightly. All the rehearsals reasonably assumed that she was the most likely royal to be called next to meet her maker. The boss in question shrugged & said that now we’d raised the subject, nothing would happen. Nor did it.

For this I was grateful. There are 4 categories of important deaths, the 1st three totally occupied by degrees of royalty & each with its handbook of dos and don’ts. Clinton & the Prime Minister, I may add, only make category 4, the least important. In the event of such a misfortune, the 1st two categories require us to go through a detailed gamut of procedures & to wake half the BBC “suits”. As “World” is the only 24-hour BBC TV service, should the royal death occur in the early hours, we also have to transmit our obituary coverage on the two BBC national stations until they resume their own transmissions.

And so it came to pass. I’d gone to bed early on Saturday night - after a pleasurable day’s walking, cinema & dining with cousin Jud - as I was working on Sunday. I woke shortly after 6 a.m. & was puzzled when I put on the world news to find myself listening to some documentary programme about Di. Maybe, I thought, I’d misread the illuminated clock beside me. The announcement of her death moments later utterly stunned me; the way the Lockerbie crash had nearly 10 years ago. It was meant to be the Queen Mum next or possibly the “Duke” who was rumoured to be in ill health. The prospect of Di or Charles’s early death had never arisen. At the same time it occurred to me that it was going to be a busy day & I’d better make an early start.

So it was. The service had “rolled” from 0200 – that’s to say, discarded all scheduled programmes & carried continuous coverage from the news studio of events around the accident in Paris & Di’s subsequent death. It was still rolling when I went home again at 2000. It was an extraordinary day. Clinton interrupted his holiday to give a news conference, we interviewed several prime ministers (one actually called in) & we crossed frequently between “live” points in Paris, Balmoral, Buckingham Palace & Kensington Palace as the events of the day unfolded. The number of black people among the hundreds laying flowers outside the palace gates was striking, as well as the emotion of those laying them there.

For two hours, I took over as studio producer, alternating between packaged accounts of the incident, international reaction, studio guests & telephone interviews. We followed Charles from Aberdeen airport to Paris on the grim trip to fetch his former wife’s body & then back to Northolt airport on the fringes of London. The motorcade had to crawl back down the motorway into the city as crowds filled the carriageways. It was a powerful experience & I was glad to “have been there”. I gathered from the wires that the main French television programmes had likewise thrown away their schedules & that even the US networks had taken their British counterparts live.

There was some discussion last night of the obsequies she should get as an ex-royal. The rules for state funerals are finely set out but Di was blurring the distinctions & breaking the rules in death as in life. Strictly speaking she “merits” a private funeral only. Several commentators hinted broadly last night that the nation wanted to be there & the royals would be sealing their death warrant by trying to bury her quietly. I must say that is my own reading.

In fact, it’s just been announced that she is to be buried from Westminster Cathedral next Saturday. I’ve no doubt that it will be the biggest funeral in British history. It must irritate the royals no end that the commoner they adopted came to steal their thunder to flagrantly. Correspondents who travelled with her have been recounting this a.m. how the crowds adored her & how obviously displeased onlookers were when they had to make do with Charles instead. How galling for the man! Love her or hate her, she was a phenomenon. I see that I’m working again next Saturday. It’s going to be a busy day. In fact, it’s going to be a busy week – although I’m not rostered to work again until Wednesday.

Not much else to say. Jud & I went out to Cookham for a tramp along the Thames & back across the hills. Jones knows it well. We found some blackberry bushes en route that we plundered gleefully. We were both hungry & they were delicious. A pub lunch followed. Thence back to London to watch the film, “The Full Monty” about a group of unemployed Sheffield men who decide that if the Chippendales can do it, so can they. It’s quite good. Finally we raided the curry den over the road. It was the first day for some time that I’d really been out & breathed deeply.

Unless I’m called in, the next day or two will be devoted to a domestic agenda – shopping, cleaning the car & completing my “Word 97” guidebook. Tomorrow it’s back to the dentist.

Enough unto the hour. My thoughts are much with you.

T