Sunday, 7 November 2010

5September1997

5 September 1997
My dear folks,

There’s only one game in town & it’s very difficult to write to you as if it wasn’t happening. For it’s an extraordinary game, unlike anything I’ve ever known. “Unique” is the word being bandied about (“more unique” & “most unique” by the ungodly) & unique is certainly is. The nation is slowly grinding to a standstill to say farewell to the Princess of Wales. People really are devastated. Since late Thursday, growing numbers have been staking positions along the funeral route, quite prepared to weather two wet & windy nights to “be there” on Saturday.

The 5 books of condolence at St James’s Palace have grown to 15 & then to 43 in an attempt to shorten the 11-hour wait & vast queues of people waiting to register their feelings – in vain. Families, men & women of all ages & races & nations, waited quietly & patiently for a turn. Some were forced to return home, only to come back better equipped for another wait the following day. Those who were interviewed - & they’ve been interviewed in their hundreds all week – had remarkably similar things to say: that they felt compelled to pay their respects to her; that she would be terribly missed & (tellingly) that they wouldn’t have done it for any other “royal”.

The Palace, quite overwhelmed by the display of grief & trenchant criticism of the royal family’s own muted response, has had to throw the rulebook out of the window to stay in the game. The queen returns early from Balmoral to London to make an unprecedented broadcast to the nation; by popular demand, the national flag is fly from Buckingham Palace at half-mast during the funeral – a double precedent. The funeral route has been extended & extended again to accommodate the millions expected to line it. There will be live television coverage for most of the day with a global audience running into billions. If only Diana were able to witness her own exit. She went to war against the Palace establishment in her bid to do things her way & to become “the Queen of hearts” & she will never know the scale of her victory.

I work tomorrow (& Sunday) but it’s not anticipated that there will be much “work” to do as we’ll be covering the funeral for most of the day. I went yest. to attend a briefing on the new computer systems being introduced across the BBC. Thousands of staff are having to go through a multi-stage conversion as Windows95 & Microsoft Office are standardised across the board. But that’s the easy part. The old “Basys” computer system which drove the radio & TV news transmissions is being replaced by a new system, still under development, which will allow every journalist to do audio & video editing as well as old fashion scripting. On top of this, the programme has to “talk” to the high tech hardware that fires cassettes & generates the graphics.

The days when news came from “a studio” have long gone. Typically, on a big news day, we’ll have one presenter & guests in the news studio (6th floor), a 2nd presenter in our newsroom (7th), a reporter in the domestic newsroom (6th), more interviewees in central London studios, & live cameras in far-flung corners of the world. Video transmission comes from the 4th floor & graphics from the 1st. It’s the computer system that holds the transmission together. We had just such a scenario yest. shortly after my computer briefing ended. I was sorting out my rota in the newsroom when the wires started flashing “bombs in Jerusalem” & I found myself volunteered for a six-hour shift. The rota organiser tried to volunteer me for another shift today but I declined. Enough is enough.

I have the sense that I should have been talking about other things but the above just came pouring out. Since my page is up & I must rush off to bank et al before Elisa arrives to clean this afternoon, I’ll call it a day & get this off.

Blessings
T

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