Just for the memories- where were you / what were you doing when you heard Diana had died?

[MarchionessVonSausage]

The thread about Earl Spencer's book made me think of this.

I'm Australian, the news came through early on a weekend morning, a Sunday I think. I was 22 and driving to pick up a girlfriend who'd had a disastrous night and ended at some random guy's house in the city. When she got in the car she was exhausted and still half pissed. I told her the news and she passed out. I took her home to bed.

She called me later saying "I dreamt Princess Diana died" and I told her to turn on the tv. Ah, memories of youth.

in bed after a night shift nursing big general hospital. staggered down at lunchtime. On the TV it said "announcement from Buckingham palace", I assumed the Late Queen had died. my youngest DD,who was 14, said "no,it's Princess Diana".

I was listening to the lovely, late James Whale talk show.

We'd left the children on their own at home for the first time ever to pop out to the DIY shop and couldn't understand why they were playing dirges on the radio.

When we got home the children were furious because none of the channels were playing normal programmes - even Nickelodeon.

We went up to London to see the flowers at Kensington Palace after the funeral. You could smell them from a long way away.

Carrying cups of tea upstairs for DH and me to drink in bed.

I've really enjoyed reading all these replies, thanks everyone.

It's interesting as an Aussie to hear the differences. As a few pp have said, in Australia the 1st reports came in saying she'd been in an accident but it wasn't serious. There was even a report saying she was in hospital and receiving visitors!?

The 1st I heard was that she'd died, I read about the earlier reports later.

Thanks again to the English posters, it must have been quite surreal. The mass public grieving was astonishing to us, in Australia we've never seen the like.

I was working in Tesco as a teen and I was due on a 6am shift on the Sunday to do shelf stacking then opening. I had a tiny radio alarm and it went off at 5am and I thought I was dreaming.

I ran to tell my parents and we watched the news on the television horrified.

I started my shift and my boss asked me to put out all the Sunday papers. They were the ones printed the night before and had photos of her with dodi with awful headlines. I checked if they wanted them put out given the news and my manager said yes as they might not print more.

when the store opened people were horrified they were on sale so I was told to take them off (bloody told him so!)

The new papers arrived mid morning and I remember having loads of black ink on my hands as they were all black covers

I was only young, 10 or 11 - we had literally got home from Paris (had been Paris and Disneyland) about 24hrs before it happened…….. I don’t think I was fully aware of the significance but I can still hear my mums voice and see her face as she came into my room whilst I was still in bed and she told me - it obviously had a lasting impact on me

My sons birthday, Sunday morning of a bank holiday.i was in the shower my husband told me. We had a birthday party with 40 coming. We had the party. Most of the women were in tears.

I dont feel that the grief was media driven. I heard it in the shower and burst into tears. No one was their telling me how to feel. She was 3 years older than me, It didnt seem real. I had my DS birthday party that day he was born on the 31st everyone thst came was really upset. This was the day she died, everywhere I went people were upset. She was to young, she was everywhere for for 17 years it was shocking and the grief was very genuine.

For the fans of Sue Townsend- I'm re-reading "Adrian Mole the Cappuccino Years".

"The soap opera of life has made a tragic mistake. You do not kill off your star halfway through a series. Now we will never know how the story ends.

"Self-control on the tarmac as the Prince moved along the line, shaking the hands of those who had brought the coffin home"

Very true. I would quote more but I know some of Sue Townsend's relatives read MN and I don't want to get a copyright ping!

But Sue had it right. She says much more about the Diana/Charles situation in the books. RIP to Sue X

woke up before everyone else, came downstairs and put telly on, then rushed upstairs to tell parents. I remember crying thinking of the boys as they were a similar age to my sister and I. I remember the ticker on every channel saying to turn to the news for an important announcement. That wouldn't happen today.

I think the public grief was not so much to do with the fact that she was dead, but shock at the way she died, coupled with being a young mother.

'Surreal' is the word I use about that time period too. I've never seen a reaction like it, even when the Queen died. I think a lot of it was to do with shock.

At the time I lived on a main road that linked a number of villages, there were always cars going back and forward. On the Sunday morning that Diana died, I walked to our local shop to buy newspapers. I noticed how few cars were about. The shop was busy as always but people weren't chatting as they usually would. They simply bought what they'd come for and left quietly. That evening a friend and I went to our usually lively local pub. The atmosphere in the pub was sombre, everyone was talking about what had happened but quietly. Work was exactly the same. On the day of Diana's funeral, you could hear a pin drop where I lived and it went on for most of the day: no cars driving past, no pedestrians, just an eerie silence. Yes, it was surreal!

Yes, the whole country was in a state of shock. I think it was mostly because she was SO YOUNG - just such a tragedy. I also think that some of it was because she was so very, very vibrant, tall with her shiny gold hair and her sparkling jewels and bright outfits, and she was all over the print and broadcast media, all the time. It was very hard to grasp that someone who had been larger than life could suddenly be gone.

If only, if only she had worn a seatbelt that night. Experts all say that she would have survived, as her side of the car was undamaged and her injuries were from being flung forward and hitting her chest against the seat in front. In an interview, her sister Jane said that Diana was a stickler for seatbelts and she didn't know why Diana hadn't fastened it. The crash report said that it was working and not stuck. Personally, I think the most obvious explanation is that it was such a short drive that she didn't bother, especially with all the fumbling in the dark that backseat seatbelts entail at night. I get taxis quite often at night as I live in a large city without a car, and they really are such a pain. I've often wanted to give up trying to get one fastened (but usually persevere).

I remember going to a friend's house the next day and her dad said 'it's no more sad than anyone else's death' also someone else saying 'that's it for William & Harry now, no more trips to Disney/Thorpe Park/Alton Towers'.

Both statements have always stayed with me, being early reactions to Princess Diana's death. Most peoples' reactions were in disbelief though and shock.

I agree it wasn't media driven. It felt very much that the media were trying to catch up with the public mood.

I had got up early and popped down to the shops to get an early paper and some milk. The sign outside said princess Diana had been in a car accident and had a broken arm. I really wasn't that interested.

I headed home, did some tidying and had breakfast. My partner came downstairs and said Diana had died. I said no she hasn't, and he said it's on the TV news. So we switched on the TV and saw she had died.

We were both pretty shocked.

Already the news was reporting people leaving flowers and gifts at Buckingham palace. A day or two later my town set up a book of condolences to sign in response to local peoples demands. I think the book of condolences was only supposed to be at some big cities, but I know in my town lots of people thought there should be a book locally to sign. Every day on my way to work I would see a long queue of people waiting to sign the book.

I remember one middle aged woman in my workplace signed the book of condolences on behalf of everyone at my workplace. And one guy was pretty annoyed at her as he was a fierce anti royalist.

It was a funny old time. But the grief was organic and the public reaction was far stronger than the media or the royal family seemed to have expected.

I remember quite a number of different memorial magazines and newspaper pullouts. I think they were mainly full of photos of Diana.

Id been up late and listening to the radio. It was reported that she had been in an car accident and there had been a fatality of another passenger. I remember thinking how awful and what if she was left severly disabled ( never occurred to me that she might also die). I turned R4 on early in the morning. I could tell immediately by the tone of the presenter that she had died.

My grief wasn’t media driven. We were in France on holiday, where I didn’t read the papers or watch the news - we had three young children to look after on holiday, and it was too much effort in French generally.

I cried the day after her death and the day of her funeral - and driving down the tunnel the day after was just so poignant!

For most people in the UK it was likely upon waking up to the news on the Sunday morning. I certainly know which bedroom in the house I was in.

I was driving over a very isolated rural road in NZ and came on radio.
It seems even more momentous now than then.. I am convinced that a lot Harry’s difficulties come from those 2 boys, grief stricken, walking behind their mothers coffin. It was horrendous.

I woke up early, about 5 a.m. Four month old baby, awake and ready for his bottle. Took him out of his cot, went downstairs, popped him in Moses basket in lounge, prepared his feed, made myself a cuppa. Sat feeding baby, noticed TV was on standby, so went to turn it off, but DH had been watching cricket updates on Ceefax the night before. Ceefax came up with the headline that Diana and Dodi were dead. I just froze. Put ITV on, and there was Dermot Maunighan, wearing a black tie, confirming the worst. Just sat there in stunned silence for hours. Baby fed, back asleep. I’ll never forget it. I remember when John Lennon was shot, waking up to learn that George Michael had died. But nothing surpasses that awful sad memory.

Switched the radio on and they were playing solemn music, thought nothing of it as it was Sunday morning and it was Classic FM. Then they said on the news about her death and I shot out of bed and switched on the TV, called my mother in Australia and we sat watching the same news reports.