It was quiet that Sunday morning in the summer of ‘97, we’d left early, a young man was my driver,
He told me his name, I’d worked with his father a remarkable writer.
Across the Thames, passing Parliament, I was prompted to tell him about that cold January day.
I’d shown respect to that past leader who’d told them, there is no other way.
To walk past a coffin, for hours we’d stood in that long winding queue,
To remember his speeches, reminding us that we owed so much to so few.
Was this memory an omen for the solemn mood that greeted us on location
Such stunned shock, those sombre faces with grave voices to broadcast the end of an icon.
We all thought we knew them, both their images so vivid in the mind,
Intense interest from media on both, hungry journalists with new facts to find.
Was there a link between the national hero who’d died peacefully in old age,
And the fairy tale princess, whose sudden death sparked so much emotion and disquiet, even rage.