Chapter Twenty-One ‘They Too Lost Someone Close to Them…’
Chapter Twenty-one
‘They too lost someone close to them…’
I was in my study at Althorp the day before the funeral when my dedicated funeral phone line rang. It was Colonel Ross.
‘I do apologize – I should have given you more notice,’ he said, ‘but we need all the key participants in the funeral to be at Westminster Abbey later today, for a run-through. The prime minister and Elton John will be there. Can you make it, too?’ It was an instruction rather than a question.
‘Of course. What time do you need me?’
As I replied, I was trying to work out how long I should allow to get to Westminster Abbey on time.
I was still thinking as someone who was used to getting to and around London by car and public transport.
I had yet to fully appreciate how very different things had become, outside Althorp’s walls, during the extraordinary days that followed Diana’s death.
In such unique times, normal travel plans need not apply.
Ross told me the timings, and I was about to say that might be a bit tight for me when he continued, ‘And of course we will send a police escort for you.’
Four motorbikes drew up in Althorp’s front courtyard at the allotted hour, blue lights flashing. I was dressed in a suit, into which I had secreted two copies of my speech – one in my trousers, and the other in my jacket – in case I somehow mislaid one.
The senior of the police bikers told me not to worry about a thing: ‘Just keep up with us, sir. We’ll see to the rest.’ They fell in round my car as we exited the Park, at which point one zoomed ahead into the middle distance, starting the traffic-clearing sequence that would continue throughout the journey.
During her sixteen years as a princess, I had accompanied Diana on several occasions to fundraising concerts that she attended as patron of one of her dozens of causes.
My God, we used to laugh on those journeys, usually with our sisters also present, howling in delight at ridiculous jokes while alone, knowing seriousness would be the order of the day once we arrived at the public event.
The first time, I had been astonished by the confidence with which Diana’s quartet of police outriders operated, the ones out front blocking off or clearing the way ahead, blowing shrill whistles and deploying no-nonsense arm gestures, all so she could power through London’s choked roads at pace, as if on an open road.
Most extraordinary had been the time when we had been ushered by her biker escort across Hyde Park Corner.
I had only ever known this, one of London’s most imperious quadrangles, as a pedestrian zone.
But this time, to bypass chaotic evening traffic, we sliced diagonally across the square, under the triumphant Wellington Arch.
During this most startling of shortcuts, I caught a glimpse of how very different Diana’s everyday existence was from mine.
Indeed, the vaporizing of that evening’s traffic jam was the first and only time that I felt a pang of jealousy about the frills that accompanied my sister’s royal position.
I knew how challenging so much of her wider role was, and she could keep that, but this perk struck me as fabulous.
This time, there was no jealousy, and none of the thrill of heading to an event where Diana would delight and excel. All I had now was the befuddlement of grief battling with the practical demands of driving very fast in the wake of speeding motorbikes, heading to the saddest of appointments.
*
I arrived at Westminster Abbey for the funeral rehearsal in less than half the time it would have taken me under my own steam.
The Abbey was sealed off for the run-through.
A senior churchman came over to wish me luck with my speech the next day.
‘Of course,’ he said, with some weight to his words, ‘the princess was no saint – so few of us are! – but she had a childish wish to please others, and that’s what drove her to do so many great things.
So, we must give the Lord our thanks for that… ’
I noted with relief how this cheery cleric’s thoughts chimed with two of the central points I was to make on the manuscripts in my pockets – Diana’s very human qualities, and her compulsion to do good things for others.
I saw Tony Blair – his face thick with an orange foundation that had a hint of pink to it. I assumed he must have come from a TV studio.
The prime minister had written to me on Diana’s death, acknowledging her numerous qualities, and I had already replied, thanking him for his kindness, and expressing how much Diana would have appreciated his thoughtful words.
Now I managed to have some words with him in private, his press secretary accurately recording in his diary for that day: ‘TB met Charles Spencer, who was really fired up re the media.’
I was. I begged the prime minister to please find time to speak to William, because I wanted him to hear first-hand (as I already had) my nephew’s views on the press’s role in his mother’s death. I knew William’s words would have much more impact than anything I had ready to say at the funeral.
Blair practised his reading – 1 Corinthians, Chapter 13 – a Biblical passage that my schoolmates and I had been forced to learn by heart, and declaim in public, when we were small boys at boarding school.
Now that chapter, so often a part of marriage services, was being repurposed to celebrate the love that Diana had brought to the world.
Blair read the entire chapter through, with care and precision, in a tone that seemed higher than his normal pitch.
He was straining to get it absolutely right.
Following the running order of the funeral service, Elton John’s musical contribution was up next. Ashen-faced with grief, Elton sat at his piano and played the opening bars of the new iteration of ‘Candle In The Wind’.
Bernie Taupin, who wrote the lyrics to both versions of the song, had heard someone use the phrase ‘candle in the wind’ about Janis Joplin, the pop star, after she died from an overdose aged only twenty-seven.
Taupin had said that ‘Candle In The Wind’ was about ‘the idea of fame or youth, or somebody being cut short in the prime of their life’.
In the song’s original version Taupin captured the tragic trajectory of Marilyn Monroe, her personal battles, and how her life and death had been played out too publicly to cater for people’s endless, intrusive fascination.
It had done well when released, reaching number eleven in the UK charts in 1974, but now was its true time, and radio stations were playing it endlessly in Diana’s honour.
Other singers would write beautiful new songs inspired by Diana’s loss – Chris de Burgh’s ‘There’s A New Star Up In Heaven Tonight’ brought tears to my sisters’ and my eyes when he sent it to us on a CD – but Elton John and Bernie Taupin had the anthem that caught the mood of the moment.
Many of the themes of Marilyn’s and Diana’s lives were identical. There was even the coincidence that both female icons of the twentieth century had died aged thirty-six. Some of the specific phrases of the original jarred a little, when played for Diana, but the public took these in their stride.
A conservative member of my family strongly objected when Elton’s involvement in the service was first mooted: ‘Surely we can’t have a pop song delivered by a homosexual at Diana’s funeral?’ they asked incredulously.
Alternative plans were contemplated. A teenager from one of Diana’s charities was told he might be needed to play a solo on his saxophone. Meanwhile, Placido Domingo contacted Colonel Ross and offered to sing for Diana.
But the Elton John idea could not be denied.
He and Diana had long been close friends – a recent falling out merely an inevitable part of being close to Diana when she felt particularly stressed – and the princess and the pop star had been seen comforting one another at Gianni Versace’s funeral six weeks before Diana died.
There was also an acceptance, even by the Old Guard at Buckingham Palace, who had found Diana exasperating in life, that her funeral must reflect her modern outlook.
The Queen’s Lord Chamberlain stated that this was not the occasion for what he termed the same ‘dusty old plan’ usually relied on at royal funerals.
Diana’s farewell was clearly going to be unlike any other seen in Westminster Abbey’s nine-hundred-year-old royal history.
Originally, as can be seen in the first draft of the funeral’s Order of Service, circulated on 2 September, Elton John was going to perform another hit, ‘Your Song’, for Diana.
But Richard Branson seems to have stepped in: ‘I rang Elton,’ he revealed twenty years later, ‘and said, “How about rewriting ‘Candle In The Wind’ and I’ll try to get the archbishop to accept it into the funeral service?” ’
When the Organist and Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey heard of the proposal, he sent a fax to Buckingham Palace’s Colonel Ross urging ‘boldness’. He thought the inclusion of ‘Candle In The Wind’ would add greatly to the inclusivity of what was going to be a service for the people.
On the night of 2 September – two days after Diana’s death – I received a fax containing Bernie Taupin’s reworked lyrics. The ink stamps at the top of the paper show that it came to me after significant travel and input.
It had started life in Taupin’s Santa Barbara ranch, a little after midday Californian time, before winging its way to Elton’s home in Windsor.
From there it went to Richard Branson in London, then arrived with my eldest sister Sarah, in Lincolnshire.
She sent it quickly on, and I read it through in my study at Althorp.
Taupin kept the refrain from the original, Marilyn, version.
Underneath, in tight handwriting, with some crossings out, Taupin set to work making the remaining lyrics fit Diana’s life’s tale.
He also celebrated Diana’s innate Englishness, celebrating how her footsteps on her native soil would always be remembered, along with the story of her brief life and its impact.
He even likened her to a rose – England’s national flower.
It was clear that Taupin wanted to see Diana’s message and legacy as continuing endlessly into the future – and I loved how this flew in the face of Prince Charles’s stated hope that Diana would be ‘forgotten, soon enough’.
Handwritten notes on the fax showed that everyone recognized the rewrite as a triumph.
Elton wrote to Branson: ‘These are new lyrics for the whole song. Obviously, we will not be using all of them – but I think it’s TERRIFIC. Let me know, Elton.’
Branson saw no need to comment further, sending it on to my sister with just three words of his own: ‘Sarah, love Richard.’
Sarah passed it on to me with: ‘Charles – EJ’s new words. Thoughts please…S. X.’
My approval was immediate in the face of Taupin’s evident brilliance.
I found it so deeply moving, hearing Elton John sing this song for Diana at the rehearsal, that I made a mental note to remember that my eulogy would be following in the wake of this emotional juggernaut.
I decided I must not listen to the song too intently on the day in case it overwhelmed me.
That one helpful pointer made attending the rehearsal invaluable to me.
I was told that my microphone check would be next, as soon as Elton had finished, and that I should just read the speech through so the engineers could establish my voice level.
I felt the reassuring scrunch of paper through the lining of my trouser and jacket pockets as Elton delivered his final chorus.
‘Lord Spencer? This way, if you will…’ I heard from a figure who ushered me to the base of the pulpit steps. It was only then that an alarm bell sounded in my brain.
I had seen a draft Order of Service for Diana’s funeral in a newspaper that morning and remembered it being noted that my contribution – referred to as ‘The Tribute’ – would be the ‘only unscripted moment’ at Westminster Abbey. Those words had not meant a lot to me at the time.
But now, as I started to climb the pulpit steps, I spotted figures emerging from the Abbey’s shadows. I had not noticed these people previously and sensed an urgent focus in them.
Oh, my God! I thought. They’re here to check what I’m going to say!
When I got to the top of the pulpit and looked out, my mind was racing. What to do?
I realized in that moment that what I had to say was about to be vetted.
It might then be edited – or even vetoed.
I toyed with the microphone, playing for time, wondering what options were open to me.
All the while, I was conscious of the keen air of expectation.
While stalling, an idea suddenly came to me.
‘God, I’m stupid!’ I said, patting my pockets theatrically, and tossing my head back in exasperation. ‘In all the excitement of getting here on time, I’ve only gone and left my speech at home!’
The figures from the shadows looked at each other, aghast.
‘Anyway,’ I continued, ‘let me read something else out, so you know how my voice sounds…’ I reached down, found a Book of Common Prayer, opened it at random, and started to deliver a passage from it. I had only uttered a line or two when I was abruptly cut off.
‘That’s fine!’ barked a curt voice. ‘We don’t need any more, thank you.’
I descended the steps, persisting in my role as an absent-minded, upper-class fool, embarrassed by my hopeless forgetfulness. I was met by looks of quiet anger and frustration.
Relief swelled in my chest. I knew that, in avoiding the attempted ambush, I had preserved the integrity of my speech – keeping it for when it truly needed to be heard, in celebration of Diana, before the world.