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00:00:00The death of Diana, Princess of Wales, sent shockwaves around the world.
00:00:12The Prime Minister was woken at two o'clock this morning.
00:00:16What followed was a day that no one had prepared for.
00:00:19No one could expect Buckingham Palace to have been ready for it, and they weren't.
00:00:23Whatever plans exist, rip them up, rip up the rule book. This is different.
00:00:28Now, we go behind the scenes to discover what actually happened on the day Diana died.
00:00:37Everything was a rush. I didn't expect, when I left home, to be standing in the Embassy at Paris.
00:00:43From those at the heart of events that day...
00:00:46This has been your life, Jane. You've recorded this woman all these years.
00:00:50You have to be professional. You've got to go and end this story.
00:00:54In the newsrooms...
00:00:56We were working against the clock.
00:00:58Getting it wrong in a situation like this was going to carry a very high price.
00:01:02And the corridors of Number 10...
00:01:05I went on the phone to Tony. He absolutely clocked it straight away.
00:01:10To the RAF, who brought her home.
00:01:12There were over 400 press.
00:01:15And obviously, my thought was, this has got to be a good landing.
00:01:19This is the story of those 24 hours.
00:01:23I think the death of Diana was one of the greatest stories of the second half of the 20th century.
00:01:28It was a day that changed everything.
00:01:31I can't recall it being a particularly busy or newsworthy weekend.
00:01:41It was a relatively quiet weekend.
00:01:57So I wasn't expecting to be called in to do one of my biggest ever stories.
00:02:04I was at home and I lived very near to television centre.
00:02:17And I was called at quarter two, one o'clock in the morning.
00:02:21It was undoubtedly a serious accident.
00:02:25And it would be something that we needed to cover as breaking news.
00:02:30Where have it led us?
00:02:32I was in bed.
00:02:35And then at ten past one, the phone went.
00:02:38And it was my editor, Lucien Hudson, who was on the phone.
00:02:42And he said, I've got news for you.
00:02:44And I said, Nick, this is Lucien.
00:02:48There's been a car crash in Paris.
00:02:51Dodie is confirmed dead.
00:02:56Diana was in the car.
00:02:59Now, I'm not going to repeat exactly the words I used,
00:03:02but I more or less said, don't wind me up at this time on a Sunday morning.
00:03:07But he said, no, this is serious.
00:03:09This was ten past one.
00:03:11By half past two, I was on air in the BBC studios and television centre.
00:03:17At the time, the BBC was still three months away
00:03:20from launching their round-the-clock rolling news service, News 24,
00:03:25and BBC World's global service, BBC Prime,
00:03:28was the only live channel the broadcaster had.
00:03:35I live pretty close to television centre.
00:03:37It probably took me 15 minutes maximum to get there.
00:03:41There was that sense of, is this really happening?
00:03:43What on earth is going on?
00:03:45Because I thought to myself, I was entertaining guests
00:03:48to a dinner a couple of hours ago.
00:03:53We were working against the clock.
00:03:55The news was already out.
00:03:56What we now needed to do was mobilise effectively for it
00:03:59to get on the air and stay on the air.
00:04:07OK, stand by, guys. Here we go.
00:04:09I realised that I'd be thrown into a studio situation
00:04:12where earpiece in, camera on, no autocue,
00:04:16having to work out what has really taken place
00:04:19and to be correct.
00:04:21Sources were quite limited but widely reported.
00:04:24We know we had enough to go on to justify coverage.
00:04:28But then what we all had to do was be vigilant
00:04:32that we're not reporting something that was misleading
00:04:34or indeed completely inaccurate.
00:04:37Because getting it wrong in a situation like this
00:04:40was going to carry a very high price.
00:04:49And we welcome viewers to BBC Prime
00:04:52with the viewers that, with the news
00:04:54that Diana, Princess of Wales, has been seriously injured
00:04:57and her companion Dodie Al-Faid has been killed
00:05:00in a motor accident in the French capital.
00:05:02In Paris, the paparazzi at the scene were arrested by the French authorities.
00:05:09For once they are the men in front of the camera, not behind it.
00:05:15The seven French paparazzi witnesses say were chasing the princess's car
00:05:19on motorbikes when it crashed.
00:05:21Some, or all, could face charges perhaps as serious as the French equivalent of manslaughter.
00:05:28I've actually been in that same tunnel being chased by paparazzis
00:05:31and they run lights and they chase you and harass you the whole time.
00:05:35It happens all over the world.
00:05:38You don't know what it's like being chased by them.
00:05:40It is harassment.
00:05:42Meanwhile, the news was beginning to break around the world.
00:05:55I was the other side of the world.
00:05:57I was living in Hong Kong.
00:05:58It was a Saturday night.
00:06:00Hong Kong was a party town and we'd all been out late.
00:06:04And I'd woken up on the Sunday morning
00:06:07and I was on the sofa watching the television.
00:06:10We didn't have mobile phones.
00:06:12We weren't going to computers for news.
00:06:14We had the local channels, some of which were in Chinese.
00:06:18And then we had BBC World News, which I was just glued to.
00:06:22In Hong Kong, some of the people in Hong Kong have been attacked today.
00:06:25Today, the people in Hong Kong have been attacked.
00:06:27It was the incident of the Hong Kong people in Hong Kong.
00:06:31I remember thinking, when do I call home?
00:06:34We were seven hours ahead.
00:06:35The rest of the world didn't know yet.
00:06:38When do I call London?
00:06:40When do I call my family who are in Sheffield?
00:06:43Would I wake them up?
00:06:44Would I tell them what I'm hearing?
00:06:46I woke my dad up because he lived next door.
00:06:48And I woke him up and we put the television on.
00:06:51And we watched it kind of unfold and not really believe it.
00:06:55At the moment, we have no further official news
00:06:58on the accident which has taken place in Paris this evening.
00:07:02We were trying to fill a very difficult void
00:07:07where we knew what was going on,
00:07:09but we didn't even know the details of what was going on.
00:07:12There wasn't that immediacy of access and corroboration
00:07:16which you get these days.
00:07:18Is there any further detail emerging?
00:07:20No, not really.
00:07:21Initially, it seemed that maybe Diana, Princess of Wales,
00:07:25had its shape relatively likely.
00:07:27I don't think anyone knew what was happening,
00:07:30including Stephen Jessel.
00:07:31He happened to be in Paris,
00:07:32but being in an apartment in Paris
00:07:34doesn't mean to say you know what's going on.
00:07:36There were obviously sources reporting on
00:07:39is Diana going to survive or not.
00:07:41And that's what we were closely monitoring.
00:07:44And there was a thirst, a hunger for facts, for information.
00:07:49Got a piece of information here.
00:07:51What do we do with it?
00:07:53We can't get it verified.
00:07:55So let's just hang on to that.
00:07:58The challenge for the first couple of hours
00:08:01was to make sure we filled the space with good information.
00:08:06What I didn't realise was that there were people who phoned in
00:08:11and said they had seen a woman walk away from the wreckage.
00:08:15And we were right to pause rather than speculate.
00:08:19My dad said to me, do you know, Jane, I think she's died.
00:08:23And I said, well, what makes you say that?
00:08:24He went, it's getting very serious.
00:08:26They're not saying anything.
00:08:27The palace have gone absolutely quiet.
00:08:29There's no comment.
00:08:30I said, no, it's not possible.
00:08:36The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair,
00:08:38was woken early today to be told of the crash.
00:08:41A statement from Downing Street said he is shocked and saddened
00:08:44by what he sees as a devastating, appalling tragedy.
00:08:49Prime Minister Tony Blair was in his Sedgefield constituency
00:08:52when he was told of the news.
00:08:54But at that stage, no one knew the full picture.
00:09:06We heard for a reliable source that Diana had died.
00:09:12The BBC typically relied on more than one source to report any news.
00:09:19The way in which we discovered that the information was correct,
00:09:24that Princess Diana was dead, came from the Philippines.
00:09:28And it has just been reported that Robin Cook, the British Foreign Secretary,
00:09:33who's currently on a four-nation tour of the Far East,
00:09:37has delayed his departure from the capital of the Philippines, Manila,
00:09:41for what is described as an important announcement about the health of Diana, Princess of Wales.
00:09:47The sudden grounding of a senior minister's plane only happens in times of national crisis.
00:09:53It was the vital piece of corroboration that Nick and Lucien had been waiting for.
00:09:58Which for me was a prompt that we're in that territory of possibly talking about a death here.
00:10:07At that point, there's a feeling of security that the information is correct
00:10:12and that therefore you can go with it.
00:10:14Robin Cook looking extremely sombre, of course,
00:10:18is an entirely inadequate word in the circumstances.
00:10:22We are aboard his plane, which is leaving in a few moments.
00:10:26But a few minutes ago, he came down the steps of the plane to issue a statement.
00:10:30Now, we can report that the British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, speaking in the Philippines,
00:10:41has just confirmed that Diana, Princess of Wales, has died following the car crash at midnight in Paris.
00:10:54I remember thinking, what happens now? You know, what happens for the rest of the day?
00:10:59Does the rest of the day happen or does everything get cancelled?
00:11:04And realising that London, the UK, the rest of the world was going to wake up to this news.
00:11:11You wondered what the world would make of it.
00:11:29What happens now?
00:11:31On Sunday morning, as newsrooms across Britain went into overdrive,
00:11:36the Queen was two weeks into her annual summer residence in Balmoral.
00:11:43With her were the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales,
00:11:47and her grandsons, William and Harry.
00:11:50Well, the Queen was informed by a private secretary who was in London.
00:11:57And there is always a private secretary on duty wherever the Queen is.
00:12:02And he informed her and the Prince of Wales what had happened in Paris.
00:12:07She came out of the bedroom, I remember somebody telling me,
00:12:14and she was sort of clutching a hot water bottle.
00:12:17And, you know, it's cold there, even in the summer.
00:12:21When the news came that Diana had died, the shock must have been palpable.
00:12:31Charles was beside himself.
00:12:34He was a really distraught man.
00:12:36And the Queen and Prince Philip were devastated.
00:12:39The royal household is ready for most deaths, but not of young people.
00:12:45I think they had to sit down and respond to this tragic death.
00:12:54As the royal family came to terms with the tragic news at their Scottish retreat.
00:13:04Down in London, people began laying flowers outside Buckingham.
00:13:09I was shocked.
00:13:14It's hard to explain that.
00:13:16It's inside.
00:13:18It's a tragic bloke.
00:13:22It would be obviously a sad day for England today.
00:13:27Already, television crews, journalists, photographers are beginning to assemble here.
00:13:33The single light is burning in one of the upstairs windows.
00:13:36But at the moment, Buckingham Palace remains silent.
00:13:51I was watching the scenes of Buckingham Palace.
00:13:53The first images I remember was kind of young guys coming back from the clubs that night.
00:14:01And they'd come just to try and get their heads around the news that was coming out.
00:14:06Why did you come here so early? What made you come so quickly?
00:14:09Just to show our respect.
00:14:11Because we were in London, we wanted to show that we respected her.
00:14:15Just...
00:14:17I don't know, just to give a symbol that we cared.
00:14:19Diana, Princess of Wales.
00:14:20Diana, Princess of Wales.
00:14:21Diana, Princess of Wales.
00:14:22The news of the Princess's death flashed around the world.
00:14:23By dawn, Britain's up and down the country began waking up to the news that Diana, Princess of Wales was dead.
00:14:39Diana, Princess of Wales, has been killed in a car accident.
00:14:46Princess de Gaulle, Lady Di, est mort de septembre.
00:14:48You've been toured from Princess and Diana.
00:14:49In English, Diana, was the driver of the former Diana-Moto-Kourtais.
00:14:53I was completely shocked.
00:14:55It was totally unexpected.
00:14:57So I ran downstairs and I put on the telly.
00:14:59You know, my children wanted to know why there weren't any cartoons.
00:15:02There was just a picture of Diana.
00:15:04I couldn't believe it, like everyone else.
00:15:05You know, she was very young, it was very unexpected, and it was very tragic.
00:15:09The death of the world's most famous woman has brought tribute, disbelief, and shock.
00:15:18The phone went and it was one of my colleagues from Bermoral.
00:15:22And he said, just sit on the edge of the bed, put the television on, and be prepared.
00:15:29That Sunday, the national grid recorded a surge in power usage,
00:15:33as millions of Britons switched their TVs and kettles on at the same time.
00:15:39Typical British reaction is you put a pot of a kettle on,
00:15:42and make a cup of tea to console yourself, and then sit in front of the television set.
00:15:46You know, you were mesmerised by it.
00:15:48I never lived through JFK. You know, I never lived through the moon landings.
00:15:51I don't know what a unifying news event would have felt like before this.
00:15:56But that was it. You know, that was it.
00:16:00Now, I look back and I think,
00:16:03was that sort of the biggest news story that happened in our lifetime?
00:16:08But as a one-off news event?
00:16:11There's been nothing bigger than that.
00:16:18As the tributes continued to pile up outside Kensington Palace,
00:16:23Diana's staff gathered inside to make arrangements for her repatriation.
00:16:27We were called to Kensington Palace, where the princess's office was part of her living quarters.
00:16:38We were a little office, with a small troop of people.
00:16:42We all arrived, about six of us, and Michael Gibbons, who was the private secretary.
00:16:49When he told us the sad news that she had passed, everybody was just horror-struck, really.
00:16:55Diana's driver, Colin Tebert, had been due to collect Diana that day from Battersea Heliport so she could see her sons.
00:17:05Having spoken to her less than 12 hours before, he may have been one of the last people to talk to Diana.
00:17:12You know, that night she'd rung, and she'd gone now, and that was, that was it.
00:17:20And the office, there was a lot of silence.
00:17:26We just looked at each other, trying to get together what we should do.
00:17:31At the time, Diana was still considered a princess by the British public,
00:17:37but she was no longer an official member of the royal family.
00:17:40Her unique position raised questions that no one had a ready answer for.
00:17:48I think she was a headache, frankly, to the royal family.
00:17:50They didn't know what to do with her.
00:17:52She was, at this stage, outside the royal family, but yet she was still kind of adored by the nation.
00:17:59And so I think she was straddling this slightly odd role.
00:18:03Even though she was officially out of the royal family, as far as the nation was concerned, she was their beloved princess.
00:18:07There was a disconnected nature of her new existence.
00:18:10And that puts the royal household in a complicated position because, essentially, she was now outside the firm.
00:18:18That Sunday morning, Diana's uncertain role within the royal family was a dilemma felt by many.
00:18:37Right from the start, everyone, whether it's royal family at Balmoral, members of the Spencer family on the end of the phone,
00:18:46Cabinet Secretary Robin Butler in Downing Street, the Lord Chamberlain at Buckingham Palace, the British Embassy in Paris.
00:18:52I mean, you've got all these operations in the very early hours, all having to make decisions and everyone's wondering, you know, what do we do?
00:19:01Suddenly, a piece of news forces all the institutions to re-establish what their role in this moment is.
00:19:12And I think it was very tough, probably, in those early hours.
00:19:15Tony Blair was still just three months into his role as Prime Minister, and this was the first major test for his new Labour government.
00:19:28The first call he made was to his communications chief, Alastair Campbell, to begin shaping the public message.
00:19:34I went on the phone to Tony. He was up in Sedgefield. We had a, you know, quick conversation. He absolutely clocked it straight away.
00:19:45There was a phrase he used to use, my God, this is enormous doings. You know, this is really big stuff here.
00:19:53And we've got to just be absolutely wise and sensible and focused.
00:19:58As Campbell began crafting the official response, Blair's team moved to open secure lines to Buckingham Palace.
00:20:06Tony was having separate conversations with very, very senior people up in Balmoral and with Her Majesty herself.
00:20:14I mean, don't forget, we'd just come into government. I mean, we'd only come in in June, and this happens in August.
00:20:20So we were all sort of ingenues, you know, in government, and didn't sort of know quite, you know, how things worked.
00:20:31Two institutions that didn't really know each other were suddenly having to get to know each other at speed.
00:20:39But, you know, what we were good at was sort of communications.
00:20:42Having released one of the first public statements two hours earlier, Blair made a second statement.
00:20:54The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said, I am utterly devastated.
00:20:58The whole of our country, all of us, will be in a state of shock and mourning.
00:21:01Meanwhile, the department in Buckingham Palace responsible for ceremonial events, the Lord Chamberlain's office, was preparing to respond.
00:21:14The head of the household, David Ogilvie, Earl of Eirley, suddenly found he was at the heart of one of the most important ceremonial decisions of a generation.
00:21:24I would imagine he would have listed the likelihood of Diana Princess of Wales dying as zero.
00:21:34And suddenly, not only is he seeing this news item, but the implication probably starts to trigger.
00:21:44How will this affect the palace?
00:21:47This was an unprecedented thing to happen to the royal family.
00:21:52Nothing like this had ever happened before.
00:21:55I think it was a most pivotal moment for them in the last hundred years.
00:22:02David Eirley was down in London about to go on holiday.
00:22:05And he rang up the Comptroller as the sort of head of ceremonial at the palace.
00:22:09A very distinguished ex-Scots Guards officer called Malcolm Ross.
00:22:13I said, you need to get down here fast.
00:22:15You know, whatever plans we have, tear them up.
00:22:19His words were, this is going to be de novo.
00:22:22Start afresh, clean slate, rethink everything.
00:22:28For a palace steeped in precedent, one question loomed largest for all the key players.
00:22:33One of the first decisions that was being made in those early hours was what sort of a funeral is this going to be.
00:22:44And there was one more individual key to those decisions.
00:22:49Diana's brother, Earl Spencer.
00:22:51It was known that Earl Spencer wanted to keep this, make this a sort of a Spencer family affair and make it a private funeral.
00:23:01That was already being discussed.
00:23:02I don't think in the moment of horror, coming to terms with the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
00:23:10Anyone in the royal household probably thought that it was necessarily going to be a royal funeral.
00:23:17I expect they might have thought, you know, this is Spencer business.
00:23:22She's left this family.
00:23:32As dawn was breaking across the hills of Balmoral, Prince Charles gathered his thoughts and walked the grounds.
00:23:51Charles had sort of set off on a long walk over the moors, Heather Moorland above Balmoral.
00:23:58And had talked to his key staff.
00:24:03Where the royal establishment and government machine were undecided as to the best path forward.
00:24:11Charles's mind was already made up.
00:24:15He would be the one to bring Diana home.
00:24:18I don't think he had any sleep at all that day, actually.
00:24:21Thinking it all through.
00:24:23This would not have been an impulsive decision.
00:24:25This would be, you know, this is my duty.
00:24:28This is where I belong.
00:24:30And trite though it may sound, I think he would have thought this is what she would have wanted.
00:24:41Whilst the palace were wrestling with the procedural details of Diana's death,
00:24:46there was still the pressing need to arrange the repatriation of her body.
00:24:50What do we do next?
00:24:53The princess was with Dodie Al-Fire's people.
00:24:58They wouldn't know how to inform people.
00:25:01You know, the two sisters.
00:25:04Who's going to inform all these people?
00:25:06You know, how are they being informed?
00:25:07We then got down to, good God, what do we do?
00:25:11But then our private secretary took me to one side and said,
00:25:15Colin, I'd like you to go to Paris and be my eyes and ears.
00:25:19Be my eyes and ears.
00:25:21Not the palace, his.
00:25:23Everything was a rush from then on, getting the car to the airport, getting on the plane, everything was a rush.
00:25:37Put in charge of the logistics of recovering Diana's body, her chauffeur, Colin Tebert, scrambled to get on the next flight to Paris.
00:25:45So, I rang some contacts and managed to get on a flight at seven o'clock, of which was packed with press and media.
00:25:58It was amazing that I got a seat.
00:25:59In fact, Prince of Wales, his, his royal highnesses, one of his police team, had to sit in the jump seats.
00:26:07As Diana's household departed for the British Embassy in Paris,
00:26:14the royal family were contemplating how to break the news to Diana's two sons, William and Harry.
00:26:29There was a lot of sadness up at Balmoral, and what was up a nose in their mind was William and Harry.
00:26:42Because William was 15, Harry was 12, and it was having to deal with them.
00:26:48There was a real sense that our response to this appalling tragedy is going to be governed by what is easiest, what is best.
00:26:59For the boys.
00:27:01It had been decided not to wake the two young princes during the night.
00:27:06The Queen immediately said that every television and radio set had to be removed,
00:27:12and the only TV set that remained was in the private rooms of the Queen and Prince Philip.
00:27:19For her, the only important thing was to protect Harry and William from this devastating tragedy of the loss of their mother.
00:27:26It was only when morning came that they learned the heartbreaking truth.
00:27:32We know from Prince Harry's book that it was his father who told them individually.
00:27:39He wanted them to know.
00:27:41He wanted to make sure he knew, you know, he was aware of all the facts.
00:27:45Probably the hardest, hardest thing he's ever had to do.
00:27:49I can't think of anything harder.
00:28:02Across the country, special second editions were hitting newsstands, rushed out in the wake of Diana's death.
00:28:09This morning's papers have started to catch up with the news of the death of the Princess of Wales and have brought out special editions.
00:28:16Some of them have not, some of them are rushing editions onto the streets with the news that she was seriously injured.
00:28:21The morning press run had been stopped, pages torn up, and first editions scrapped.
00:28:28It's not often you find Sunday papers in Britain printing this late, but this is a story of enormous magnitude.
00:28:35The poignant headline, simple, black, Diana is dead. Princess and Dodie killed in a car smash.
00:28:42I think the tabloid editors that night will have looked at the weeks they'd just run, in which she was on holiday in the med with Dodie,
00:28:53and thought, there's something happening here, and I do not want to get on the wrong side of it.
00:29:01Everyone will speak their truth until the person at the centre of it is dead, and then suddenly you get a whole different tone.
00:29:08The 180 degree turn about Diana of nearly all press and media in an incredibly short period of time was quite extraordinary.
00:29:23It felt like something unpredictable happening on a large scale.
00:29:30I'm sorry, I blame the Sun newspaper and the ilk.
00:29:34The surge in public feeling the papers had sensed was now spilling onto the streets outside the palace gates in London.
00:29:47Within the past half hour, the police have been clearing people away from back, a little bit back from Buckingham Palace,
00:29:53and put out metal barriers, because they're obviously expecting that a lot more ordinary people will be coming here during the day just to make their own direct personal contribution to the nation's grief.
00:30:05People were starting to take flowers to Kensington Palace.
00:30:17And my dad said, you should go up there and take pictures, I don't want to go up there, I'm too upset.
00:30:23He said, why don't you pick some flowers from the garden and take them up?
00:30:25I had some roses and various things, and I walked up to the gates, and there was quite a lot of my colleagues there, and they would say to me, oh, Jane, where's your cameras?
00:30:38I went, oh, I can't take any pictures, because people were very hushed, and there was this smell, and people were just all coming like a pilgrimage.
00:30:47And they were putting little pictures down of her, and little notes saying, oh, beautiful, and we miss you, and it was all very emotional and raw.
00:30:56But it was the smell, as I walked up, I don't know what it was, but as I walked up, I just smelled all these roses, and that smell, even now, when I think of that event, I think of the smell of the roses.
00:31:07Meanwhile, staff at Downing Street and Buckingham Palace stood poised, waiting for a decision on how to proceed with the funeral arrangements.
00:31:21Various conversations were going on with, you know, different people, you know, everybody was anxious to get it right.
00:31:28A lot of it was about making sure that her funeral would be representative of what the people felt.
00:31:37A group of soldiers who travelled up on the train from Salisbury, especially, to lay their own floral tribute, came across and said how strongly they felt that there should be a state funeral,
00:31:46and if there wasn't one, they would volunteer to march as a guard of honour for her.
00:31:51What sort of funeral was it going to be? Was it going to be a royal funeral? Or was it going to be a private family funeral?
00:32:00And that really was up to the princess's brother of Icaunt Althorpe, Charlie Spencer, who was in South Africa, had trouble contacting him.
00:32:09But once they did get hold of him, he made a decision pretty quickly that it was to be a royal funeral, and then we sort of blew off the dust off the paperwork and started the ball rolling.
00:32:17It was decided that this can't be a private funeral. It's a world event, and the whole nation certainly, but a lot of the planet is going to want to pay their respects.
00:32:36Once the royal machinery goes into play, nothing distracts or deters it. That is what's so incredible about that machine.
00:32:42There is a mechanism in train, and the mechanism is that wherever the body is, if it is at a place where it is necessary to fly it back, then they fly it back.
00:32:55If, for example, it had happened in Sandringham, it would have come back either by car or by train.
00:33:00If it happens in Scotland, it comes back by plane. It happened in Paris, it came back by plane. There are plans.
00:33:06We're being held out quite a long way away, as you can probably tell, but we just got it. The Hercules landing at Northolt.
00:33:16We flew the Prince over 700 times and the Princess over 200.
00:33:22I was a sort of flight instructor for him, and most of the time, if the Prince was up front and actually flying the aircraft, he used to come up and do the take-off and landing on all his trips.
00:33:33That morning, I had planned to fly the Prince and one of the Princes down to RAF Lynam from Aberdeen. They were going back to school.
00:33:47And we got a call from Strike Command, who were our tasking agency, to say the plans changed. The Prince wanted to fly to Paris.
00:34:01I immediately got dressed and went into Northolt.
00:34:04At 10.27am in County Durham, new Prime Minister Tony Blair was preparing to address the nation.
00:34:18I feel like everyone else in this country today utterly devastated.
00:34:31Our thoughts and prayers are with Princess Diana's family, in particular her two sons, the two boys.
00:34:38Our hearts go out to them. She was the people's princess.
00:34:48And that's how she will stay, how she will remain, in our hearts and in our memories, forever.
00:34:58He was brilliant at comms, brilliant at delivery, brilliant at capturing the moment.
00:35:04He seemed instinctively in tune with the mood of the country, the words he chose, the way he spoke.
00:35:10And it seemed, for a moment, that it was Blair who was responding on behalf of the establishment, on behalf of the head of state, on behalf of the Princess's own family.
00:35:20He was the one who was taking the lead in all this.
00:35:26Immediately, that was going to be a headline around the world.
00:35:30She was the people's princess.
00:35:32And it was heartfelt.
00:35:34It summed things up.
00:35:40The numbers of people who've turned up here have continued to grow.
00:35:43I would say that there are now perhaps two or three thousand people standing, watching the palace, just alone in their thoughts, really.
00:35:51There is no royal standard flying on the palace, because the Queen and Prince Philip aren't here.
00:35:56But if one looks at the government buildings that are within eyeshot, the Home Office has its flag, the Union flag, flying at half-mast as a mark of respect.
00:36:04Meanwhile, in Scotland, the royal family were attending Sunday service, at Crathi Kirk, as usual.
00:36:18Three black cars emerged from the castle and crossed the River Dee, the family on its way to church.
00:36:24In the first car, the Queen Mother with the Duke of York.
00:36:28Behind them, the Prince of Wales, seated between his sons.
00:36:31And finally, the Queen dressed in black with the Duke of Edinburgh.
00:36:36Everything is by tradition. Everything is how it has done before.
00:36:40So the first thing we saw of the boys was when they were going to the church for Sunday service.
00:36:48At the time, inside Balmoral, the absolute overarching worry for everybody was the boys.
00:36:56You know, how do we make this in any way less unbearable thought?
00:37:02Well, I think it was exactly the right place for the boys to be.
00:37:07The sense of shock and paralysis and isolation up there was intense.
00:37:12And all they were thinking about was proceeding as they always had proceeded.
00:37:17Of course, on this occasion, the rules are all about to be rewritten.
00:37:28As the royal family sat in Crathi Kirk, the wheels were already in motion to carry out the first royal repatriation in living memory.
00:37:37With the decision made to grant Diana a royal funeral, a directive from the Ministry of Defence tasked the RAF with bringing her home.
00:37:56The decision to bring the body back did surprise me.
00:38:06It surprised everybody at Northolt.
00:38:09There is an op order which says if a member of the royal family dies overseas, day four is repatriation.
00:38:16But thinking about the reaction to her death, I think the household probably made the decision, let's get her body back as quickly as we can.
00:38:30I felt it was right that I did the job of bringing her home, having flown her so many times.
00:38:38Bringing Diana home that same day broke with royal protocol, triggering a high speed operation against the clock.
00:38:48There was quite a lot of change going on left, right and centre because we had to fit what we call the coffin fit in the hold of the 146.
00:38:58It's basically fibre wood with ball bearings fitted in it so that the coffin could be moved easily and slid sideways to go out of the door.
00:39:12Shortly after that, there was another change.
00:39:15Instead of going from Northolt to Aberdeen, we had to go via RAF Wittering because we were to pick up her two sisters who were going to travel with the Prince out to Paris.
00:39:29In case there's any last minute changes, the private secretary was on board, the press secretary.
00:39:37She was in tears and I just put my arms out, gave her a hug.
00:39:41Everyone was in a real state at the time.
00:39:43But it became, you know, we've got a job to do and everybody knew that everybody else would be doing their bit towards it.
00:39:58Apparently the Queen and Prince Philip are leaving the East Service.
00:40:03There they are just coming back down the drive from Crathi Parish Church.
00:40:07The young princes, William and Harry, have been at the church as well.
00:40:12We're not sure in which car they are travelling.
00:40:15The decision for Charles to bring Diana home from Paris had been made hours earlier.
00:40:21But the palace still hadn't told the public.
00:40:24Of course, the Prince of Wales is not thought to be with his family there.
00:40:29Leaving the press in the dark, struggling to keep pace with the movements of the royal family.
00:40:36I think Dermot, I think he was said to be there.
00:40:39We may be able to see if we look carefully.
00:40:41That's the Queen Mother.
00:40:42And in that third car along, pretty sure that that contained the Prince of Wales and the princes, William and Harry.
00:40:52Meanwhile in Paris, Colin Tebert was at the British Embassy, preparing for Prince Charles' arrival.
00:41:08I'm reasonably dressed, I'm smart as I could be at that time in the morning.
00:41:12I didn't expect when I left home to be standing in the Embassy at Paris.
00:41:15I was taken inside into an enormous room, which had probably 10 to 15 people working on what they were doing and what Paris was doing and what everything was happening.
00:41:30I just had that feeling in my mind, they're expecting lords, ladies, generals and people of that ilk from the household at the palace.
00:41:38I went in there and the ambassador approached us.
00:41:41And his words were, you're the first people from the princess's household.
00:41:46We are very, very pleased to see you.
00:41:49Which then lifted me.
00:41:55RAF Northolt, a secure military airfield in West London, was selected as the arrival point for Diana's repatriation.
00:42:04The plane wasn't coming back until the afternoon, but there were certain preparations to be made at RAF Northolt, getting sort of generators off the apron, getting trucks off the apron, getting airport steps off the apron, to set up a press position, because we were expecting a lot of press and they needed to see what was going on.
00:42:24We ended up at Northolt, I think we were out there about one o'clock in the afternoon, a team of six of us.
00:42:33We needed to get a motorcycle team up there to escort the hearse from there to Fulham Moultrie.
00:42:38And we had already planned a route, which we thought was the most convenient and best route for us.
00:42:44We were waiting for the aircraft, there was no definite ETA for the aircraft at that stage.
00:42:51Meanwhile, having picked up Diana's sisters, Jane and Sarah, the Royal Jet was on its way to collect Prince Charles in Scotland.
00:42:59When we landed at Aberdeen, the usual guy came out to see us. He said, the Prince is en route from Balmoral.
00:43:09He arrived at Aberdeen about 20 minutes after we'd landed.
00:43:12That day, Prince Charles became the royal emissary, I suppose, who becomes the member of the family who goes out to pick up Diana and bring her home.
00:43:28What the media used to call the wars of the Waleses and, you know, the rows that led to their separation and their divorce, I mean, all that stuff just sort of suddenly felt peripheral.
00:43:42Don't forget, Charles at that time was sort of portrayed as a bit of a pariah, you know, he was the baddie in this marriage.
00:43:49And so I think there was something quite brave about Charles stepping into that position and saying, no, of course I'm going to go and do this, you know, she's my former wife, she's my son's mother.
00:44:03Flying from Aberdeen to Paris, which was just under two hours, the air traffic control authorities, both London and in France, were all saying, please pass on our condolences to the Prince of Wales.
00:44:26It really made me realise the enormity of what we were doing and how it's almost a worldwide acknowledgement that people were sad that she had passed away.
00:44:43As the Royal Jet travelled south through British airspace, Anfield Stadium lay silent beneath, the day's only Premier League game having been cancelled as a mark of respect.
00:44:54Very sad, I mean, flags at half-mast everywhere and people's hearts at half-mast as well, I think, really, you know.
00:45:04I just recall, you know, the atmosphere, because I've never felt London so quiet, even the birds didn't seem to fly, you know, there was no noisy traffic, there was quite, you know, hardly any planes, and all you could hear was the sound of people crying.
00:45:19THEY CONFER
00:45:34Shortly after 4pm British time, the Royal Jet touched down at Villa Kublai Airport and was met on the runway by the British ambassador's car.
00:45:41Prince Charles arriving at the small military airport outside Paris.
00:45:46There's the Prince's car, the Prince clearly visible there in the back.
00:45:51ACCOMPANIED BY DIANA'S SISTERS, Prince Charles made the short 15-minute journey to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where they were greeted by French President Jacques Chirac, flanked by a presidential guard, a rare tribute.
00:46:13We were standing outside the door, the Prince came up to me and thanked me for coming.
00:46:20I answered in words I can't remember. It was a very, very quick conversation.
00:46:26He was obviously very upset, but he was very professional.
00:46:30The Prince asked if there were any members of the clergy there, and then the Prince, the two sisters and the vicars went into the room and the door was shut.
00:46:44I was a little bit worried that the coffin had just come out as it was, you know, which I was hoping there'd be a colour to put, a cover to put over it.
00:46:57I was quite delighted to see that the Royal Standard, which had been brought by an RAF officer, was placed over the coffin.
00:47:14And I thought that was very fitting and a very, very nice thing to happen.
00:47:18In covering her coffin with the Royal Standard, Charles was breaking from tradition and sending a clear message that Diana was to return home as a beloved member of the Royal Family.
00:47:33Sisters of the Princess behind there.
00:47:36Harrowing time for them all.
00:47:39So we then started to leave the hospital and this part I was totally amazed because everything has stopped in Paris and the crowds were very deep and applauding, which I felt really, really heartwarming.
00:48:02APPLAUSE
00:48:21There is the hearse in the centre of your picture now, bound for the military airport at Villa Kublai, where it will be placed on the ground.
00:48:31Where it will be placed on that BA 146, on which Prince Charles arrived earlier.
00:48:40Seeing that coffin arrive, just suddenly you sat back and thought, oh, it's for real.
00:48:47A large part of the Royal Family was no longer with us because she played a major part.
00:48:53At a quiet military airport west of Paris, the RAF took over.
00:48:57A slow progress to an aircraft of the Queen's flight.
00:49:02And a few flowers for the journey.
00:49:04It wanted to take off just over an hour before our arrival time at Northolt.
00:49:09The Prince and the rest of his party arrived, he got on board and it was back to the job, getting the aircraft ready and getting the flight back to London on time.
00:49:23I was very, very impressed by the Royal Highness.
00:49:29He'd lost his ex-wife, but he still was holding everything together when it could have broken down, but it didn't.
00:49:36I sat with the two sisters and talked about what I can't tell you, you know, about the Princess.
00:49:47The take-off from Villa Kublai was into a setting golden sun and it somehow seemed fitting.
00:49:58The floral tributes lying outside the main gate of the palace is now stretching some 20 feet or so out in front of the gate.
00:50:22Up and down the country, everyone from factory workers to school children were united in shock at Diana's death.
00:50:30It's not just what you've done, Frost, that makes us love you so.
00:50:35It's all the joy of who you are, the friend who comes to know.
00:50:40The flowers were starting to stack up outside Buckingham Palace.
00:50:44I remember talking to Lord Early, who'd taken charge.
00:50:47He was asked, you know, what are we going to do about changing the guard tomorrow?
00:50:51Because the guard need to come through those gates and they've now covered in flowers.
00:50:57And he took the decision very early on, leave the flowers where they are, we'll move the guard.
00:51:04He could see ritual tradition dictates, you do things by the book.
00:51:10Well, you know, we've just ripped up the book, we're going to do things differently.
00:51:14It became a bit of a health hazard because the flowers started to sort of turn into compost.
00:51:20It's a very difficult job to do.
00:51:23These people are coming from all over the country.
00:51:26I've been speaking to the ladies that have come down from Newcastle, from Liverpool,
00:51:29and they feel they've got no reason, but they just feel they had to come down.
00:51:33How are you coping yourself?
00:51:35Um, having to cope.
00:51:37It's a job, it's got to be done.
00:51:39It's not a very nice job, it's not a very nice time to be around here, but you've got to carry on.
00:51:44I think the death of Diana had resonance for many people on a personal level.
00:51:51And I think a lot of people found in her death a way of exploring their own grief.
00:51:59The only people we think of at the moment is William and Harry.
00:52:04That's who I feel really sorry for.
00:52:08As grief turned to anger, the nation demanded to know who was to blame.
00:52:13The story that we understood was that she was pursued by paparazzi.
00:52:20We just knew the basics. We knew that there'd been a car chase.
00:52:23Um, we knew that, uh, paparazzi had been involved.
00:52:28Um, and that was pretty much it.
00:52:31In Paris, the French authorities were treating the paparazzi as potential suspects.
00:52:38Seven photographers detained near the scene of the fatal crash are still being held.
00:52:43Reports of photographers detained in Paris gave public anger in Britain a clear focus.
00:52:50Don't you think that what you're doing is wrong?
00:52:53Anyone with a press badge was seen as complicit.
00:52:56I don't want to be on paper.
00:52:58It's you, the press that killed her.
00:53:02You're the scum.
00:53:05All the news at that point were going, it's all the photographers, it's all the photographers for.
00:53:09And I thought, oh my goodness, I'm one of those photographers.
00:53:14Jane Fincher has photographed Diana since before the engagement.
00:53:17Diana had asked her for advice on dealing with the paparazzi.
00:53:21Last year, Jane Fincher resigned from the Royal Rotor of Photographers because of what she called increasing bad manners within the media.
00:53:28Standing in front of her, blocking her way, trapping her in the corner and down a road, you know, banned her car.
00:53:35I mean, just really like being like a fox with the hounds around her at times.
00:53:46She said to me once, you've got to remember Jane, I watch all of you as much as you watch me.
00:53:50She said, we travel the world and when I get off the plane, there you all are.
00:53:54She goes, I know when so-and-so's got a new car, I know when so-and-so's got a new outfit.
00:53:59She said, it's not just you looking at me, I'm looking at you.
00:54:07I very clearly remember the last time I photographed her and it was in December 96 and she was visiting a ballet in London.
00:54:15And she arrived and she just looked so sad and she looked across at me and I looked at her and she sort of kind of mouthed to me, I'm sorry.
00:54:26And then she went.
00:54:29I just saw her disappear out the door and that was the last time I saw her in the flesh.
00:54:34An hour before the Royal Jet was due to land, a select group of photographers were in position at RAF Northolt to document the arrival of the Royal Flight.
00:54:52Jane was amongst them.
00:54:54I felt reluctant all the way through it about picking up a camera, but I thought, no, I've got to pull myself together.
00:55:00This has been your life, Jane. You've recorded this story. You've recorded this woman all these years.
00:55:06You have to be professional. You've got to go and end this story.
00:55:09Underground at RAF Northolt, Royal Press Secretary Dickie Arbiter was overseeing arrangements for the arrival.
00:55:17When the press arrived at RAF Northolt, I had a briefing with them in one of the hangars and I borrowed a photographer's steps and I stood on the steps.
00:55:27I didn't have to say much. All I said, we know why we're here, don't we?
00:55:32They kind of got the message.
00:55:36It was a very strange atmosphere there and we were all very quiet. We were getting our cameras out and all looking a bit sheepish.
00:55:43Yeah, I felt that for once the media was feeling a bit ashamed of itself.
00:55:48We're all part of that team, you know, the Royal Photographers, in quotes, that covered all our events. Not just her, but the Queen and everything else.
00:55:58So, not a word was said amongst us.
00:56:02They were normally a very noisy bunch we were together and there was a lot of banter and jokes and, you know, a very noisy lot.
00:56:12Everybody was absolutely silent. They were, you know, they were as shocked as I was.
00:56:17The majority of reporters and photographers and television crews, they all knew Diana, but none of them could quite believe that she was actually dead.
00:56:31And when we saw the BAE 146 of the Queen's flight sort of make an approach to Northolt with its light shining, still didn't believe it.
00:56:40Just 17 hours after the fatal crash in Paris, the Royal flight carrying Diana's body home approached RAF Northolt.
00:56:52When we came back, there were over 400 press, so we knew that the world would be watching.
00:57:00And obviously my thought was this has got to be a good landing.
00:57:04So, as you see, a perfect touch down there.
00:57:11I taxied the aircraft to the end of the runway and brought the aircraft on stand at 7 o'clock.
00:57:19There was Tony Blair and there was the Defence Secretary to greet Diana off the plane.
00:57:25As the whole world watches this extraordinary tableau on a rather unlovely bit of RAF tarmac.
00:57:36When the engines were switched off and the slow wind died down and the RAF colour guard from the Queen's Squadron marched to the hold of the aircraft.
00:57:47And we saw this box coming out, draped in a royal standard.
00:57:54I don't think anybody believed it.
00:57:59It's like, this is the reality now.
00:58:02But even then I kept thinking, no, it's not her in there, you know, it's not her.
00:58:06She's a young woman, it's not her in there.
00:58:08I do remember looking at Jane and she was crying.
00:58:14It's hard to explain, to put into words, how a bunch of really hard-nosed journalists, photojournalists, if you like, have been with this lady and covered some pretty hairy events around the world.
00:58:25And there we were in total shock, if you like, thinking that there she is.
00:58:30And there was Charles standing there with her sisters and they looked devastated, you know.
00:58:37It's quite hard picking a camera up and pointing at people in that situation.
00:58:42It's uncomfortable.
00:58:46I had told the photographers that there were to be no motorised cameras, just single shot.
00:58:52And you really could have heard a pin drop.
00:58:55Couldn't hear any birds.
00:58:56There were no birds.
00:58:57There were no birds at all.
00:58:58It's almost as if they knew that something mournful was happening.
00:59:05And all you could hear was the hobnail boots on the tarmac, on the apron.
00:59:14I kept having these flashes of these times I'd been with her.
00:59:21And I kept seeing the times I'd photographed her with her boys.
00:59:24That was the thing that really upset me.
00:59:32The hearse sort of did a U-turn and came round and it just literally came right in front of the press pen.
00:59:39And I just remember it was close and I just thought, I can't relate this to her being in that coffin.
00:59:45I don't think any of the media quite believed what they had seen.
00:59:51There's usually a tremendous scramble to get the pictures and get the story back to base as quickly as possible.
00:59:57There was no rush that day.
00:59:58The hearse now leaves RAF Northolt, the police outriders, clearing the way as if anybody would want to get in the way.
01:00:18Flanked by a motorcycle escort, the hearse carrying Diana's coffin began its planned journey to a mortuary in London.
01:00:30The 10-mile journey should have only taken 40 minutes, but no one had accounted for what happened next.
01:00:38We were going to go straight down towards the M4, but we ended up using the M40 because once we got to the Polish War Memorial roundabout, we couldn't go straight on because of the crowd.
01:00:49I was absolutely flabbergasted at how cars had stopped on the westbound carriageway of the M40 and people got out and stood alongside the central reservation barrier.
01:01:03And that was all the way back into London.
01:01:08People, people, people, absolutely frighteningly amazing.
01:01:13It was chaos. The thought hadn't even occurred to me that all these people would come and they were parked all along the road.
01:01:22This pilgrimage had started immediately, then the tears started and I just cried my heart out, you know, just being a big part of my life.
01:01:32I thought, you know, you better pull yourself together, Jane. You can't drive like this, you know, you can't see what you're doing.
01:01:37All the way down the A40, we had flowers, people cheering, clapping.
01:01:46And that's when the first flowers started being chucked from the side of the road.
01:01:51And it's very similar actually to when Elizabeth II flew home from Scotland and her coffin came into RAF Northolt.
01:01:59And it was a fairly wet evening, but that didn't stop the crowds.
01:02:05And again, the A40, as the hearse came through, people just standing by the side of the road, you know, chucking flowers in vast numbers.
01:02:16And those are the moments I always find where you think, this is why monarchy is different.
01:02:25After a post-mortem examination at a West London mortuary, Diana's body was placed in a hearse and driven to St. James's Palace, where her coffin was laid in the Chapel Royal.
01:02:45There she is in the same chapel where, you know, Elizabeth I prayed for the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
01:03:01I mean, she could not be more, you know, central, if you like, to all things royal.
01:03:07That's Diana being kind of fully embraced by the royal establishment.
01:03:15I had a spare half hour, and I sat in the Chapel Royal with her.
01:03:21And I suppose there was an anger that had built up over the course of the day.
01:03:27Angry that she'd gone to Paris, she'd got in this car.
01:03:31And I was angry that it had come to this, and it was so unnecessary.
01:03:35And it was such a waste of a good person.
01:03:38When I look back on that day, how Britain, if you like, handled it, was the way we do things that way, and we do them well.
01:03:51And I was proud to be part of it.
01:03:54I went back, went home, slightly dazed, exhausted, wondering where I'd been for the last 24 hours.
01:04:01I didn't shed a tear or show emotion on air, because the adrenaline kept me going.
01:04:07But certainly sitting in front of the television, that's when the floodgates unleashed.
01:04:12There are people here from every walk of life, every age, every race.
01:04:18And despite the time of night, still streaming into the park here, it's quite incredible.
01:04:22The British people really had come to identify with this young girl who they'd seen grow up.
01:04:30They'd seen Diana through the years, you know, with all of her ups and downs.
01:04:36Still, she was the people's princess, she was.
01:04:40They felt that she was their representative in the monarchy.
01:04:44A few minutes ago, I walked along the wall that goes from the road all the way up to the palace.
01:04:49It's about 400 yards, and every inch of the way there are people praying, still little children at this time of night,
01:04:58people laying flowers, people keeping vigil, candles, almost like a shrine all the way along.
01:05:08The day that Britain lost a princess, and as John Simpson said,
01:05:13a young woman described by all to whom she reached out as irreplaceable.
01:05:17Good night.
01:05:24It was a day that changed everything, wasn't it?
01:05:28I mean, it was a day which started with kind of lurid headlines about, you know, what she was doing on Dede Fayed's yacht,
01:05:38and ended with her essentially lying in state.
01:05:46I look back at that 24 hours and think, given the enormity of what happened, and the shock of it, I think it was a feat of dignified, methodical tradition, pageantry, pomp, respect, love and compassion all coming together in a spectacular way.
01:06:04Everybody did an extraordinary job, given where we were in the early hours of that morning, to where we were as night fell, and there is the Princess of Wales inside the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace.
01:06:22And that just seemed entirely appropriate.
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01:06:45There was a Rafael E.
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