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20 years since the death of Princess Diana

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BK
bkman1990
I was only aged 7 years old when Diana had died in Paris. I cannot remember everything on the night in question when she had her car accident and on the day of her funeral because most of these events came as a blur to me when I was a young person in Ireland.

When the first news report came in about her accident; I think I had seen it on one of the main RTÉ News bulletins. I do remember seeing her funeral on BBC One Northern Ireland when my late grandparents had access to it on the Analogue Cablelink service. When I came down sometime after 9am in the morning; I remember seeing both of my grandparents watching the funeral in complete silence.

My late grandmother had a great love for Diana before she died. My mum still has a great affection for her and for the rest of the British royal family including the Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Charlotte & Prince George.

All that I can remember from the funeral was the on street royal cortege leading down to the cathedral & Sir Elton John singing his version of Candle in The Wind at Diana's Funeral service. Sir Elton really did a tremendous job of singing that song at her funeral that day. It was one of the most surreal live TV moments in my whole life.

I did watch most of the BBC documentary 7 Days on RTÉ One on Monday night. I was a little bit emotional myself near the end of it as Prince William and Harry were giving their final thoughts on her mother's death. Prince William said something alone the lines that when he lost his mum at a young age; that would make you or break you. Prince Harry was saying in the documentary that seeing Sir Elton John singing Candle in The Wind nearly made him cry afterwards after he said it was a beautiful and surreal moment seeing that happen in the Church.

The BBC did a beautiful job in making that documentary on Diana. It was wonderful and good kudos to them.
Last edited by bkman1990 on 31 August 2017 4:06pm
Justin and paul_hadley gave kudos
VM
VMPhil
BBC Genome have published an article on their blog about the schedule changes on the BBC that day:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/genome/entries/81a0d667-8980-46ba-b9d7-27acdce5544e
NE
News96
Which also covers that whole week and It's interesting to see that they were nearly back to near normal programming by the Wednesday/Thursday before the funeral (with a few of the postponed Sunday programmes getting shown.)
WA
watchingtv
Not much mentioned on how Channel 5 covered it, but they have posted a clip online
DE88 and paul_hadley gave kudos
JA
james-2001
Once they finally decided they were going to cover it anyway.

And interesting that the 5 DOG is actually burnt into the footage (and it's clearly not from an off-air VHS).
VM
VMPhil
From Kirsty Young's introduction though it sounds like it's from the evening bulletin.
IS
Inspector Sands

The BBC did a beautiful job in making that documentary on Diana. It was wonderful and good kudos to them.

It was excellent. Thought it a bit of a shame that channel 5 decided to make a documentary on exactly the same premise when there was no way it would be as good as the beebs
CL
Closedown
The schedule changes made on BBC One and ITV on Sunday 31st August 1997 were as follows:

BBC ONE

6.30am, BBC News - Martyn Lewis presented live news coverage of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales through the morning, with Peter Sissons taking over around lunchtime. All normal Sunday morning and afternoon programming was cancelled.

6.00pm - Six O'Clock News with Peter Sissons.

6.30pm - A special service for Diana was broadcast from St Paul's Cathedral, however the BBC had to leave the service and present a special bulletin covering the return to London of the coffin. They left the service around 7.00pm.

8.00pm - Diana, Princess of Wales - David Dimbleby hosted a special tribute programme to Diana, which included special guests who talked about their meetings and interactions with the princess, including live via satellite from Los Angeles, Billy Connolly and his wife Pamela. Included BBC News Update with Peter Sissons.

10.30pm - Diary of a Princess followed by BBC News at 11.00pm

11.40pm - Reflection, the leaders of the main faiths in the country gave their reflections on the death of the princess, this was followed by a full repeat of the service from St Paul's Cathedral earlier in the day. BBC One handed over to BBC World at 12.20am.

INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE TV ROOM, MANY THANKS TO THEM.


Remember consulting Ceefax around lunchtime and seeing some sort of piano recital billed for around 11pm on BBC1 - years after any non-Proms classical music had been banished from the channel - but, alas, it was dropped later in the day.
SO
southwestman
RetroRerun on Twitter have posted this article from the Radio Times in 1997 about how the media reported things...

DE88 and Steve in Pudsey gave kudos
WA
watchingtv
Newsround coverage





BR
Brekkie
Wasn't that the first day of a new look?
RE
Revitt
It's always puzzled me why BBC news used the night time set throughout the whole day. They usually changed back to the daytime set after the late evening news ready for the next days bulletins anyway.

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