MY TWO CENTESIMI-WORTH

Shall I use the magic word "Diana" in the title of this post and get lots of hits? - No, I don't think I will.

Almost a year ago, when an Italian magazine published photos of the dying Diana, I wrote this post and received more hits than I had ever had before, though only one comment. [I’d been blogging since April 2006.] In my naivety, I didn’t realise that what a lot of these visitors were looking for was a copy of the magazine. I was amazed when I found out that copies were being sold on ebay.

Now British Channel 4 TV is planning to show a documentary containing video footage of the Princess’s last moments and I gather there is a public outcry. As one commenter wrote to the Telegraph, how long will it be before the Mercedes is sold on ebay?

Here the film The Queen has been available for a couple of months on DVD and friends who have borrowed my copy ask if the situation was really as portrayed in the film. I tell them that it’s an interpretation . They also express, as they expressed in 1997, their amazement at the way the British people “let themselves go” emotionally at that time. I was convinced then , and am convinced now, that this behaviour can be partly explained by the fact that, for the first time, it had become possible to reach middle age without having known bereavement. So for many, the “loss” of this person they had never met was their only experience of it. There were other factors, of course: our collective guilt; our fascination with celebrity, even in death; and if many had not known bereavement, who had not been betrayed in love? We identified with Diana in this, at least.

My opinion is that no one deserves to have their dying moments paraded as entertainment – unless you were Allen Ginsberg and wanted it that way – and , whatever you think of the woman, she has sons, a brother and sisters still living. Please, channel 4, spare a thought for them.

Here is something I wrote in the early days of September 1997. I have not edited it:

DIANA - THOUGHTS OF A REPUBLICAN

Like most people in the country, I switched the radio on last Sunday morning and began to go about my routine. Then I realised that these were not normal programmes. At first, I could not work out who they were talking about. When I did, I thought for a moment that they were going to say that she had topped herself. However, the manner of Diana’s death was so arbitrary as to have been absurd had it not been so tragic. As I listened, I hoped that she had not, at any stage, been conscious.

Then I sat, mesmerised, in front of the television for the rest of the day - something I never do. A week before, we were laughing at her over her denial of what she was supposed to have said to “Le Monde”. Now her funeral was being planned and no one mentioned “Le Monde”.

Of course it is sad. Yet thousands all over the kingdom will have suffered their own tragic losses this week, and they, unlike royalty, do have to worry about how to pay for their little funerals or whether the floral tributes received for their loved ones will be sufficient.

I have never been able to comprehend the mass purchasing of flowers on these royal occasions. If you wish to pay a tribute, why not take flowers to the old, the lonely or the sick? Perhaps, as one newspaper suggested, these improvised shrines are taking the place of religion in the land.

And how does a republican feel about the woman in question?

Let’s face it - we all coveted her looks, her figure and her style. Charitable she certainly was and she showed a genuine warmth towards those she met. But there is a dichotomy in attending a ball to raise money for charity and spending thousands on the dress you wear to it; in campaigning for funds for the underprivileged when what you spend on tights in a week would keep a third world family for thrice as long. But she did her best in the circumstances in which she found herself and the world in which she moved.

As to the rest of the royal family, I think that the judgement of history will be “too late”: Too late, the flag at Buckingham Palace; too late, the viewing of the tributes by the royals; too late came the realisation that they had to be seen to be responding to the situation by the people.

And how did they look at Balmoral, Charles and the Duke? - Like relics of a bygone age, in their silly, and, to our eyes, inappropriate, kilts. And there was the Queen, outside the Palace yesterday. Whoever goes just outside their own home with their hat on and a handbag? Diana, hatless, tightless in summer, gloveless, blew all that away.

For all the respect that the Establishment claims to feel, and although the coffin has been draped, since last Sunday, in the royal standard, the HRH has not been posthumously restored to the Princess. That says it all.

Going back to the lady herself, I truly hope that she did find some happiness with Dodi. However, had she lived, would this hypocritical and deeply racist nation have allowed her to marry a Muslim without comment? I doubt it.

For hypocrites we all are. It is inevitable that someone, somewhere will one day publish a photograph of the dying Princess. When they do, we will all go out and buy the papers. Ghouls to a man, we are too fascinated by her not to do so.

I watched the solemn procession to Kensington Palace last night and honestly felt that anyone with a camera should have been arrested. Hypocrisy, again. After all, I was watching.

I watched again today, in between bouts of working. As the touching cortège passes, you want the young Princes not to hurt so much. You want Diana to know that she was appreciated in a way that she could never have imagined. Most of all, you want it to be last Saturday night and you want to say to her, “Don’t get in the car”. But the reality is all too clear now.

Whatever the Queen says, I do not believe that the royal family will learn from these few days. I think that without Diana they will revert to being the stuffed shirts that they always were. You cannot tell me that, with the exception of William and Harry, they have not collectively breathed a guilty and secretive sigh of relief, now that the force for change has gone.

If the monarchy is to survive at all, perhaps they should declare a regency under Anne until William comes of age. Then Charles can marry the detested Camilla instead of conducting the affair, as we all know he will, behind the drawbridges of his dreary castles.

The royals have come through this week, but only just. It was the closest call they have had. Now, as shock and grief subside, the anger may well resurge.

The kings and queens of Britain live lives of enormous privilege and owe their continued existence to the will of the people. The House of Windsor would do well to remember it.

6.9.97