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Original poster

To ask if any of you went to London for Princess Diana's funeral?

479 replies

ewenice · 14/04/2019 13:34

Just watching a documentary about the week following Princess Diana's death and the overwhelming outpouring of grief that crossed the country. We were living overseas at the time so had no idea of the effect it had.

Did anyone on here go down to London during that week for the funeral or to sign the condolence books?

OP posts:
araiwa · 14/04/2019 13:42

God no

SerenDippitty · 14/04/2019 13:43

No

Ginkythefangedhellpigofdoom · 14/04/2019 13:46

I didn't and had absolutely no interest in doing so.

Iv a feeling though now so much time has past a lot of people wouldn't want to admit they were a part of it tbh.

LindsayDentonsCat · 14/04/2019 13:47

Ugh. My boyfriend at the time was over from Northern Ireland and he arrived into London on the day of the funeral. I wanted to head straight out of London, but he made a fuss, said he wanted to go to Hyde Park to watch on the screens. It was utterly hideous. Hundreds of grief-leechers clutching their Orders of Service from The Sun, sitting sobbing in the park. It was an exercise in dramatics and a jolly day out for many.

LindsayDentonsCat · 14/04/2019 13:48

A friend of mine queued to walk past the Queen Mother's coffin. Bizarre.

joyfullittlehippo · 14/04/2019 13:48

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

claracluck78 · 14/04/2019 13:50

Yes

I was 17/18 I suppose & went with a friend
We stood on the procession route near Horseguards Parade and then walked to the big screens at the park for the actual service

Because of the location of my job some years later I also saw the funeral of the Queen Mother

I expect I will also go to London for the Queen's funeral

JenniferJareau · 14/04/2019 13:51

No I didn't but I hate crowds so watched the funeral at home.

London felt like a morgue that week, the week between the time she died and her funeral. It was awful. I remember going out and people sitting near you in pubs or other places just started talking to you about Diana.

You'll get lots of dismissive statements here about Diana unfortunately, one of MN's popular stances is to really dislike her.

PinkiOcelot · 14/04/2019 13:52

God no!
Yes it was sad, but people weeping and whaling about a woman they didn’t know and had never met, is just ridiculous.
These people that camp out etc for Royal events amaze me as well. FFS get a life!!

OldAndWornOut · 14/04/2019 13:53

I went to London the day after the funeral to look at all the flowers and tributes.

It was very strange, but beautiful.
I'm glad I went.

SinjunRivers · 14/04/2019 13:53

No I didn't but I was a Saturday girl at Boots in my home town and got most of the day off because they were closed apart from being duty chemist that day. So some staff volunteered to be there to run the pharmacy.
All the shops were shut.
I watched it on TV.

ClaraMatilda · 14/04/2019 13:53

I did. I was about nine and my mother took me. She was very upset. I remember being utterly confused by it all - yes, it was sad that she'd died, but I really didn't understand why all these people who had never met her were crying and so on.

I remember that she got me to leave one of my cuddly toys with all the flowers, as a gift 'for Prince Harry.' I knew very well that a prince wasn't going to be given a random second-hand toy, but my mother really liked the idea so I went along with it to make her happy.

I still think it was all utterly bizarre.

viques · 14/04/2019 13:53

No, and I live in London so could have. I do know people who went , and who went to KP to lay flowers, commune with others and weep. And I have to say some of the people I know who did this surprised me, you never can tell.

I also know someone who was in the team responsible for clearing the flowers from KP, and logging the (sometimes very strange) items that were left there. Apparently the messages were boxed up for posterity, well I am not sure if the originals were or if they were photographed. The flowers were pretty rank by the time they were moved.

The whole thing was a week of weirdness.

PinkiOcelot · 14/04/2019 13:54

I didn’t dislike her. I didn’t know her. She had no baring on my life whatsoever.

billybagpuss · 14/04/2019 13:55

We were in the Lake District, the hills were empty is was seriously weird but lovely

GabrielleNelson · 14/04/2019 13:57

The effect it had on the country was chilling. Of course anyone with a heart would have felt desperately sorry for her children and her family. But there were plenty of people who weren't consumed with grief, and why should we have been? We didn't know her. It wasn't a personal loss. The media, though, whipped up a great frenzy of mawkish sentimentality and it all got out of hand. The sea of plastic-wrapped flowers rotting near the Palace was macabre.

The hypocrisy from many sections of the media and the establishment was jawdropping. Private Eye did a big feature in its first edition after she died, juxtaposing quotes from many journalists and columnists from before and after her death. It was a sign of the brief madness that overtook the UK that W. H. Smith banned that issue of Private Eye from its shops. Didn't like the cover, apparently. Wrongthink!

My conclusion is that the frenzy was an attempt to stop people thinking too much about the role of the media in causing her death - the huge sums paid to the paparazzi who were chasing the car that night in the hope of getting yet another photograph, wall to wall coverage of everything Diana did, endless speculation about what she would do in the future.

So, in short, no, of course I didn't go. Wild horses wouldn't have dragged me there.

reallybadidea · 14/04/2019 13:57

I couldn't even bear to watch the funeral so I went for a walk in the Peak District and left my twat of a boyfriend and his mum to sob themselves into a pleasurable frenzy of vicarious grief.

Sparklingbrook · 14/04/2019 13:58

No. Some people from my work booked the day off to go. Bizarre.

DH and I were in the USA a couple of months after and the taxi driver asked if we had 'got over' her death yet. Confused

Mewithane · 14/04/2019 13:58

I was ten when Princess Diana died, my dad drove me and my brother up to London and we just drove around looking at all the floral tributes. The streets were covered with flowers and messages. Amazing how one person can have such an impact.

SlappingJoffrey · 14/04/2019 13:59

Hell no.

I was a child old enough to have some idea what was going on, and found it utterly bemusing. I still do. Nothing against the woman. She was the same quite shit quite nice human being as the rest of us. I felt for her sons.

Skyejuly · 14/04/2019 13:59

I went with my mum.

Redglitter · 14/04/2019 14:00

I just dont get the public grief thing. All these people crying over someone they'd never met.

I remember seeing poor William & Harry having to get out the car & speak to people. I thought it was horrible these 2 wee boys being expected to speak to all these awful crying people when it was them whod suffered the loss.

ShannonRockallMalin · 14/04/2019 14:01

My then boyfriend, now DH, was working in west London at the time and I was staying with him that weekend so we went to have a look at the flowers out of curiosity. I suppose it's one of those things you can say 'I was there' about, but as a lifelong republican I can't say it had any more effect on me than any other well known person passing away.

Sparklingbrook · 14/04/2019 14:02

I cried when Rik Mayall died. I had never met him, but he meant something to me.

DramaAlpaca · 14/04/2019 14:02

I'll admit I wanted to go, she was only a couple of years older than me & I liked her. However, I was 39 weeks pregnant with DS3 & DH, quite rightly, put his foot down & told me to get a grip Grin