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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:
eddiemairswife · 14/04/2019 14:23

I thought the reaction was utterly bizarre. That week between the death and the funeral was the last week of the school holidays, the weather was lovely, and I think a lot of people regarded it as a (sad) day out to look at the flowers and write (goodness knows what) in the books of condolence.

NaturatintGoldenChestnut · 14/04/2019 14:24

No.

Sparklingbrook · 14/04/2019 14:25

YY my friend went into Birmingham to sign a book of condolence. What for?

Redcrayons · 14/04/2019 14:25

No, I watched it on TV and I did feel quite moved by it. I suppose that someone who was so ubiquitous was so sudden it maybe triggered the collective grief. Looking back now it was certainly quite a strange time.

Don't think it would happen now

Bravelurker · 14/04/2019 14:25

I was living in London at the time and was given the day off, which was spent in a market pub in Walthamstow.

Sounds cold but my flatmates were Danish and Kiwi's and couldn't care less tbf.

Billy02 · 14/04/2019 14:26

I didn't go and also can't understand the weeping and wailing.
However, I can understand why those who were helped by her through charity felt a need to mourn. Like the aids patients, for one.

grumiosmum · 14/04/2019 14:26

I was living in London & DH and I wandered over to look at the flowers at Kensington Palace. That was all.

I did watch the funeral on TV and found it very moving.

ILikeyourHairyHands · 14/04/2019 14:26

Jeysus no, the whole thing was a national embarrassment. Thankfully I was on holiday so managed to avoid it all.

Streely · 14/04/2019 14:28

I lived 5 minutes from the main road in London that the funeral cars went along on the way back to the Spencer’s home after the funeral. It’s not central London, nowhere near Kensington Palace, but there were still crowds out as she went by and the road was completely strewn with flowers that evening. It was quite some sight.

I did go to Kensington Palace in the days after she died, as I worked very nearby and passed it on my way home. It was surreal. People weeping and wailing and keeping candlelit vigils.

It was a very strange episode in our history. I still can’t work out what it was all really about.

Daysofpearlyspencer · 14/04/2019 14:29

My Dad died that week and some of my friends took flowers for The Peoples Princess but couldn't be bothered to send a card to me.

Mustbetimeforachange · 14/04/2019 14:29

No, but then I don't indulge in royal weddings etc either. Found the whole thing bizarre.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 14/04/2019 14:32

Am curious what the reaction to the Queens death will be though

Hopefully a lot more dignified than the reaction to Diana's - I'm no monarchist but I can still respect her lifetime of service even though she's been well rewarded for it

It was natural to feel sad for Diana's two lads and for a life cut so horribly short, but I had no interest in parasiting someone else's grief

grumiosmum · 14/04/2019 14:32

The sudden manner of her death was very shocking.

But I cried more when David Bowie died.

I was very moved watching the funeral on TV thinking about the impact on those 2 young boys she left behind.

And the speech her brother gave was quite extraordinary.

wibbleee · 14/04/2019 14:34

parents did, I went to work. At the time I was making up flower bunches for supermarkets (the ones in buckets). Awful to say but the amount of overtime we had at work was stupendous!!! urggg lillies! (they have pollen that stains....

I couldnt grieve for a person I didnt even know. Parents went because they`re the grief leching type to fall for anything in the media!

Trippedupagain · 14/04/2019 14:35

I wouldn't have bothered, but the funeral cortege went past the end of our lane, near the Spencer Estate, about 30 metres from the house, so it would have seemed perverse not to see it go by with all the other people standing there. We had had the press camped out opposite our house for a week, police everywhere on the day itself. It was quite interesting being near an event like that, but very inconvenient for normal life, like picking the kids up from school, etc.

BumbleBeee69 · 14/04/2019 14:35

I lived in London at the time, it was impossible to avoid.

dirtystinkyrats · 14/04/2019 14:35

No, I was about 14 and found the whole thing ridiculous. Its always sad when someone dies. But hysterical grief from crowds for someone the vast majority of them have never met? Weird. But then being the age I am pretty much all I saw of her was weeping on TV and talking about her divorce and how hard done by she was.

pontiouspilates · 14/04/2019 14:35

No. I'm a London and don't know anyone that went. It was a very strange and hysterical time.

ZippyBungleandGeorge · 14/04/2019 14:37

No I was 12 and on holiday, the news where we were initially said she'd been shot

myidentitymycrisis · 14/04/2019 14:38

I lived in London and wanted nothing to do with it.
I went for walk at the time of the funeral and it was eerily quiet.

MegaClutterSlut · 14/04/2019 14:39

Yes, I was 15 at the time. My friend made me go with her. I remember when william and harry walked past behind the coffin looking so sad and looking like they really didn't want to be paraded around like that, not that I blame them. I would hate it

Southwest12 · 14/04/2019 14:39

I lived in London but was away on holiday at the time. I remember watching the funeral on a tv in a youth hostel in Salzburg. The people running it popped in the room at one point and said Mother Theresa is dead, you can come back next week for her funeral!

I worked on the Queen Mother’s funeral, on the day the coffin came to lie in state I was marshalling a press stand on the corner of Parliament Square, and on the day of the funeral up at Wellington Arch.

Thesearmsofmine · 14/04/2019 14:40

No, I was a young teen at the time and I just felt sorry for her sons. How horrible it must have been for them to have all that going on, people who didn’t know her acting like they did and have to perform in public while grieving their mum.

rainbowlou · 14/04/2019 14:41

Not me but a very close relative I lived with who had never mentioned Diana at all before behaved so bizarrely after hearing it on the news.
She was sobbing and wailing how unfair it all was and repeating ‘why her?’
I got such a fright as I thought someone in my family had died.
She was permanently attached to the tv coverage and cried throughout for days, cancelled all plans to see friends and then travelled to London with flowers and to ‘feel closer to Diana’
The day of the funeral I had to leave the house as I was made to feel guilty for talking about anything but her!
For weeks after she kept saying she felt empty and felt as though we had lost a close friend.
It was all utterly ridiculous and extremely cringy for a few months then it stopped and Diana has never been mentioned again 🙈

caughtinanet · 14/04/2019 14:42

I didn't go on the day of the funeral but happened to be working in London the week leading up to it, I went to Kensington Palace and like the poster above remember the overpowering smell of the flowers.

I also remember thinking about the mess that would have to be cleared up afterwards, the flowers where piled so deep on top of each other.

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