Why Diana's funeral affected me forever
This week, 25 years ago, the Royal List’s Maria Coole was in the huge crowd at Diana’s funeral. She explains what it was like then and how it has stayed with her since
“It’s OK, it’s good to let it out,” said the weeping American hugging me tightly. Initially aghast, like a true Brit, I wanted to wriggle free but within seconds I was reciprocating her embrace.
I had told myself I would not cry, I would not blub, I would not sob. But I foolishly hadn’t factored in the unbearable sight of Diana’s coffin right in front of me. Aloft on a gun carriage, draped in the Royal Standard and bedecked with three wreaths of white flowers (lilies and roses) and, as I discovered later, William and Harry’s letter to ‘Mummy’. That single word to remind us that nothing we felt could eclipse the pain they were enduring.
As Diana, Princess of Wales knew all too well, the comfort of strangers is not to be underestimated - it is an invisible balm to soothe one’s sadness. I should know. It washed over me all day at her funeral. And I’m not embarrassed to say, that stranger and I continued cry-gulping and hugging each other, as Diana’s funeral cortege moved slowly and solemnly passed us on South Carriage Drive in Hyde Park.
There had been plenty of warnings to brace myself. At precisely 9.08am, the tenor bell at Westminster Abbey tolled every minute as Diana left her home, Kensington Palace, for the final time escorted by the King’s Troop. Between each tolling of the bell, the silence was punctuated by the sound of the horses’ hooves, by gasps, by weeping, by wailing and by the cries of “Diana”, “We love you, Diana”.
The pulsing wave of grief was rippling through the crowd as the cortege drew closer. Maybe it was the horses, maybe it was the soldiers, maybe it was the heartbreakingly beautiful sunny morning that Saturday, 25 years ago, on 6 September 1997. But there was now no doubt that the irreplaceable Diana was gone. She was in that lead-lined coffin directly opposite me.
I was not alone in my bewilderment and grief. Two thousand guests filled Westminster Abbey. A million people gathered in London along the route of her royal funeral procession. Across the UK, almost 33 million people watched on TV and around the world 2.5 billion tuned in to say farewell to the People’s Princess, our Queen of Hearts – forever.
I went alone to the funeral. No one I knew in London at the time was that committed to waking up early on a Saturday (of all days!), catching the 137 from Battersea and spending all day surrounded by silently sobbing strangers. But ever since a then 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer lit up the Royal Family, I was mesmerised. I had to bear witness to her leaving our lives. I’d already left flowers at Kensington Palace gates (twice) that week. I was overwhelmed by my emotions. For William and Harry, and for me.
For context, it’s quick confession time. A decade earlier, I too had lost a young parent (my 36-year-old dad – same age as Diana). It happened suddenly late one August evening - a new school term days away - and in similarly brutal circumstances. His death created a seismic shockwave in my life that reverberates to this day. At the time, I had just turned 15, the same age William was when he woke up at Balmoral on 31 August 1997 to a life that could never be the same again. You don’t need to be a psychotherapist to understand why I was profoundly affected by Diana’s tragic death.
This affinity of loss was also the reason why I had no desire to see the funeral cortege further along the route - where the young princes would walk behind their mum’s coffin. I still don’t know how they found the inner strength to do so.
Instead, alongside thousands of others, I watched the funeral service on a huge screen erected in Hyde Park. We blubbed as Elton John sang “Goodbye England’s Rose” in his reworking of Candle In The Wind. And we roared, cheered and clapped at Earl Spencer’s heartfelt/angry/powerfully moving eulogy. The crowd around me were on their feet applauding Diana’s brother, especially during this particular ‘putting the boot in’ part of his speech.
“And beyond that, on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men,” declared Charles Spencer, “so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you planned.”
The doors of the Abbey had been left open during the service and the applause and cheers erupting from people watching on screens outside also swept into the Abbey. The congregation began clapping in the pews and all the way down to the altar, resounding off Diana’s coffin. Apparently, no one in the Royal Family clapped, except William and Harry.
When the service was over and as Diana was being driven to Althorp, to her final resting place on her lake island, I wandered on my own, yet surrounded by a moving sea of people. Everything and everyone seemed preternaturally quiet, people talked softly and even the London skies had fallen silent for a brief time that day. I stopped at Kensington Palace, for more wobbly chin moments reading some of the messages left with the vast swathes of flowers and tributes. Later, I found myself at Harrods looking at Al-Fayed’s portrait shrine to his son Dodi and Diana. A jolting reminder that another family was also grieving.
I never again saw that American woman who had comforted me with a spontaneous hug. But I’ll never forget her kindness. We went our separate ways after the cortege had passed, on its journey to her sons waiting for their mum.
Diana once said: “Anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can.” We were all suffering that day. Grieving for Diana and her glittering future cruelly snuffed out. Grieving for her beloved boys and their heartbreaking loss. I suspect most of us were also there grieving for our own lost loved ones. Our personal pain soothed by the comfort of strangers. Diana would have understood this implicitly. She was there in every act of kindness that day. She was that special.
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