Originally Posted by
the other bob wilson
Probably more than any other event in my life, the reaction to Diana's death had me thinking I was completely out of step with the thinking of the Great British public. Like virtually everyone else, I was really shocked when the news first broke of her death and completely understood the tone of the way it was covered on that Sunday, but when the news coverage and reaction from the public got more and more shrill and desperate as the days went on, it almost felt like the country was having a collective nervous breakdown. I was off on pre arranged annual leave for most of that week and it was only when I got back to work that I got the, reassuring, proof that there were other people around who shared my incredulity at what was happening.
The feeling that I'm "marching to a different drum" than what constitutes mainstream public opinion in Britain has become an increasingly common one over the past twenty years, but I've never felt it so strongly as I did in those days following Diana's death.
When her brother made that speech at her funeral, the instantaneous public reaction to it from outside Westminster Abbey still makes me think that it was as close as this country has come to a revolution overthrowing the establishment in my lifetime and the strangest thing is that I believe many of those who would have been there at the front leading it are the very same people who now turn up in their Union Jack clothing for things like Trooping the Colour and Royal birthday celebrations!