Goodbye England's Rose
Title: Candle in the Wind
Artist: Elton John
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Goodbye England’s rose, may you ever grow in our hearts; you were the grace that placed itself, where lives were torn apart.
- taken from the first four lines of the lyrics to the song Candle in the Wind 1997 by Elton John, performed at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in Westminster Abbey on 6 September 1997. Although Elton John continued to play the 1973 version (dedicated to Marilyn Monroe, as signified by the first line ‘Goodbye Norma Jean‘, the real name of the late actress/model), even in the subsequent memorial services for the princess. He vowed never to play the 1997 version again unless spefically requested by her two sons.
I could still remember it was a night spent at my dad’s best friend’s house – I’ll refer to him as M. I can still vividly recall the scene where M’s kids, my brother and I were crowding around the tiny TV set on the staircase landing on the second floor, bedazzled by the Malaysian Independence Day celebration parade and the fireworks display.
Mom hastily ran up the floor. M shouted from the kitchen below. Switch to CNN! Now!
Gone were the extravagant display of Malaysian enthusiasm. One of the first few images I remembered seeing on CNN was the entrance of the Pont de l’Alma tunnel where the fatal accident took place. Flashing lights screaming in the darkness of the night, ambulance sirens wailing in the distance. A crowd gathered. Then CNN cut to the camera closest to Diana’s wreckage. A mangled piece of metal. I don’t remember seeing any badly mangled body.
The angry red news ticket at the bottom of the screen striked a strong contrast with the piano black wreckage of the car. The reporter spoke hastily into the microphone, close to hyperventilating. Then came a slurry of switching back and forth between the news anchor and the reporters – I wondered why didn’t they have picture in picture back then.
Then came the bomb. Princess Diana is dead.
Fast forwarding to the mornings after the accident, her news dominated the frontpages of our national papers. Her smiles, her philantrophic acts, her fashion sense, her companion, her relationship with Prince Charles, conspiracy theories, all mashed up and miserably squeezed into the limit spaces of the crumpled daily.
I remembered an angry article criticizing the lack of compassion shown by the royals – the Royal Standard was not flown at half-mast. They said it was some absurd royal protocol that they had to follow. That ticked off the 7-year-old me. Screw protocols, I bickered.
Later in the years I grew up, I began reading more about Diana and her past – more importantly, her acts of philantrophy and love, soldered that loving smile of hers into everyone’s heart. Even up till today – 12 years after her unfortunate death – that I still remember her as a fine lady. A people’s queen.
Goodbye, England’s rose.
p/s: Regarding the design of the poster, I will cover that on another day. In short, it’s a grid-based design.
I remember where I was that day too! I was in an electronics shop with my dad and I will never forget the news coverage being played on ALL the display TVs!
Hi Holly! Yea, it was a very gloomy day indeed – and that scene you’ve described reminds me of those epic films that I’ve watched. Like a disaster scene covered by a news TV crew being played on all the screens in a shop.
I can not remember where I was when I first heard of the news. I do remember, though, all the news coverage.. on every channel. I was a little confused and not as deeply troubled as it by others were.. simply because I wasn’t too familiar with Princess Diana then. :| It’s such a truly sad story.. and the poster you made in tribute of her is absolutely gorgeous. I love the grid-pattern and you chose really wonderful photos as well.
Yea, her death received really wide converage across the world – it was estimated that the number of people who watched her funeral worldwide to be around 2.3billion, significantly more than those who have done so for Michael Jackson. Of course, I’m not trying to comparing the both – the number just tells us how much lives had the late princess moved, changed and touched.
I wasn’t very familiar with her and her legancy when she died – I only remembered mom getting all red-eyed watching her funeral on TV. After the years I grown to appreciate what she had strived to do :)
Thanks for the compliments, Trina! How are you? Haven’t seen you blog lately – must be very busy eh?