A JOURNEY

by Blair, Tony

  I got to know her reasonably well before the 1997 election. A Labour peer, Lord Mishcon, had me round to dinner to meet her. My friend Maggie Rae knew those who knew her and had her to dinner as well. We kept in touch, and met from time to time.

  She was extraordinarily captivating. The aura that already surrounded her was magnified by the radical combination of royalty and normality that she expressed. She was a royal who seemed at ease, human and, most of all, willing to engage with people on an equal basis. She wasn’t condescending, she laughed normally, she conversed normally, she flirted normally. That was her great charm: put her with any group of people anywhere, and she could get on with them.

  She had a strong emotional intelligence, certainly, but she was also very capable of analytical understanding. I had a conversation with her once about the utility and force of photographs and how they could be best used, which showed a mind that was not only intuitive but also had a really good process of reasoning. She had the thing totally worked out. Occasionally she would phone and say why such-and-such a picture was rubbish or what could be done better, and though not, as I say, at all party political, she had a complete sense of what we were trying to achieve and why. I always used to say to Alastair: if she were ever in politics, even Clinton would have to watch out.

  She was also strong-willed, let us say, and was always going to go her own way. I had the feeling she could fall out with you as easily as fall in with you. She knew the full range of the power of her presence and knew its ability to enthral, and most often used it to do good; but there was also a wildness in her emotions that meant when anger or resentment were woven together with that power, it could spell danger. I really liked her and, of course, was as big a sucker for a beautiful princess as the next man; but I was wary too.

  Anyway, for sure, just as we were changing the image of Britain, she was radicalising that of the monarchy; or perhaps, more accurately, her contrast with them illuminated how little they had changed. For someone as acutely perceptive and long-termist about the monarchy and its future as the Queen, it must have been deeply troubling. Above all, the Queen knew the importance of the monarchy standing for history, tradition and duty. She knew also that while there was a need for the monarchy to evolve with the people, and that its covenant with them, unwritten and unspoken, was based on a relationship that allowed for evolution, it should be steady, carefully calibrated and controlled. Suddenly, an unpredictable meteor had come into this predictable and highly regulated ecosystem, with equally uncertain consequences. She had good cause to be worried.

  After the holiday and before my first visit to Balmoral for the prime minister’s weekend with the royal family – a tradition stretching back to the time of Gladstone and Queen Victoria – I went to Sedgefield. It was great to go back as prime minister. I was proud of them, and they were proud of me. By and large that feeling persisted until the end. Despite the fact that ever since becoming Leader of the Opposition I had not been able to get back there with anything like the old regularity, they welcomed me each time I did. I would go to the local party’s General Committee meeting and give my report, then spend an hour or two chatting, exchanging views, answering questions with people who had in many cases known me since 1983 and who had watched my rise; and in that room, I would be very frank. It was a privilege for me to be able to talk to people I genuinely trusted, under John Burton’s watchful eye; and they felt it a privilege in return to have the access and feel part of history in the making.

  I would visit the Dun Cow pub in Sedgefield Village or the working men’s club. People were friendly but also respectful of the fact I was out for a pint or two and to relax. Politics was rarely discussed unless it was around the table over dinner with John and Lily Burton, Phil Wilson (later my successor as Sedgefield MP), Peter and Christine Brooks, really nice decent people, and Paul Trippett, a rough, tough but lovely and very smart man who was steward at the working men’s club and became a close friend. We would chat, go through the constituency problems, and I would take their temperature on the big issues of the day. Collectively and individually, they had a great instinct for where the public was; and rarely, if ever, did they fail to help me feel my way. They also represented a very important strain of the British people. They might read the Guardian but weren’t of the Guardian; they were not at all ‘London’, and neither were they typical Daily Mail. They were highly political, but knew lots of people outside politics.

  They were yet another interesting example of how the old pigeonholes into which people were put didn’t fit any more. My politics represented that completely, but it was very hard to get the commentating classes to see it. Sedgefield was a ‘northern working-class’ constituency, except that when you scratched even a little beneath the surface, the definitions didn’t quite fit. Yes, of course you could go into any of the old mining villages – the Trimdons, Fishburn, Ferryhill, Chilton and so on – and find the stereotype if you looked for it, but increasingly it wasn’t like that. The new estates were private estates of three- and four-bedroomed houses, and while the people who lived there couldn’t be described as ‘middle class’, neither were they ‘working class’ in the sense of Andy Capp. They drank beer; they also drank wine. They went to the chippy; they also went to restaurants. They were taking one, two or even three holidays abroad a year, and not all of them in Benidorm.

  This was a different Britain, and one in which I felt at home. There had been an article – usual Daily Mail stuff – about how I was a poseur and fraud because I said I liked fish and chips, but when in London living in Islington it was well known that I had eaten pasta (shock-horror). Plainly you couldn’t conceivably like both since these were indications of distinct and incompatible cultures. The Britain of the late 1990s was of course actually one in which people ate a variety of foods, had a multiplicity of different cultural experiences and rather enjoyed it. This was as true ‘up North’ as it was ‘down South’. The world was opening up. My closest friends in Sedgefield symbolised that difference. There I was at ease and could be myself, and they were just them and that was fine by all of us.

  Things had changed around our constituency house, as they had everywhere in our lives. There was a twenty-four-hour police guard, not as heavy as it became later, but always there. The roads had been changed to limit access, but it still felt like the one bit of our lives that remained constant. The surroundings were familiar and cosy.

  My thoughts on the evening of 30 August 1997 were focused on the perpetual concern of getting an agenda together that made the changes match the rhetoric. I was worried that if people did not notice major change soon, cynicism would set in. I knew that we had the political initiative, and that the Tories were disconnected and ill-disciplined, but I also knew our media hold was fragile and based in many cases on convenience, not conviction, on both our parts. Once they decided they were going to go for us, if they couldn’t get us on substance, they would try to get us on style, to make our strengths weaknesses and our very political success into a form of trickery. Also at some point, the right-wing media would understand we weren’t actually a mild form of Thatcherism, and the left-wing media would realise New Labour was for real and not going to yield to the usual demands of the left.

  Probably, too, I had been preoccupied getting the kids to bed – usually my job – settling them down (impossible with three aged thirteen, eleven and nine), fetching drinks, reading stories and hoping they would give us enough respite at least for a quiet meal together.

  I went to sleep around 11.30. At about 2 a.m., something most peculiar happened. Cherie is difficult to wake once asleep, but I woke to find a policeman standing by the bed, which as you can imagine was quite a surprise. As I struggled into consciousness he told me that he had tried the bell but I hadn’t heard it; that Princess Diana had been seriously injured in a car crash; and that I should immediately telephone Sir Michael Jay, the British ambassador in Paris.

  I was fully awake now. Cherie had also woken up
. I explained the situation to her, then rushed downstairs and Downing Street put Michael through. It was clear from the outset that Diana was highly unlikely to survive. Michael went over her injuries, informed me that her boyfriend Dodi Fayed and the driver had been killed outright, and the bodyguard was alive but unconscious.

  I phoned Alastair. He had heard from media monitoring, of all sources. We were both profoundly shocked. I couldn’t believe it. She was such a force in people’s lives, so much part of our national life, so clearly, indubitably and unalterably alive herself, it was impossible to think of her dead.

  At 4 a.m. I was phoned again, however, to be told that she was. Michael was full of praise for the way the French had handled it: the Interior Minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement, the Health Minister Bernard Kouchner, and President Chirac had been sensitive, cooperative and respectful. From that time onwards there was a constant round of calls and, through it all, we were trying to work out how it should be managed.

  I know that sounds callous. I was genuinely in grief. I liked her and I felt desperately sorry for her two boys, but I also knew that this was going to be a major national, in fact global event like no other. How Britain emerged was important for the country internally and externally. I was the prime minister; I had to work out how it would work out. I had to articulate what would be a tidal wave of grief and loss, in a way that was dignified but also expressed the emotion and love – not too strong a word – people felt for her.

  If the Queen had died, it would have been, in one sense, simple: there would be an expression of great respect and praise, but all of it, though deep, would have been nonetheless conventional. This was completely different. This was not a conventional person nor a conventional death; and there would not be a conventional reaction.

  In addition to grief I felt something else, which stemmed from the last meeting I had with Diana. It had not been all that easy. She had wanted to come to Chequers and offered a date in June, which I accepted. Alastair – despite adoring her – and Number 10 felt that it was unseemly for me to see her before I had met Prince Charles, and it might be misinterpreted. Reluctantly I agreed, and we refixed for July. As astute as ever, she guessed the shifting of the date was deliberate and was cross about it.

  She came for the day with Prince William. The weather was gorgeous and Chequers looked beautiful. The staff were thrilled she was coming, and she was gracious and friendly to all. We had been talking about what she could do for the country in a more formal way. It was self-evidently tricky to see what that might be, though she was enthusiastic to do something. She was undoubtedly an enormous asset and I also felt it was right that she be given the chance to shift the focus somewhere other than exclusively on her private life; but I also felt – and I don’t know, maybe I would be less punctilious about it nowadays – that Dodi Fayed was a problem. This was not for the obvious reasons, which would have made some frown on him; his nationality, religion or background didn’t matter a hoot to me. I had never met him, so at one level it was unfair to feel nervous about him, and for all I know he was a good son and a nice guy; so if you ask me, well, spit it out, what was wrong, I couldn’t frankly say, but I felt uneasy and I knew some of her close friends – people who really loved her – felt the same way.

  At that time, on a good day at Chequers, we would get the kids, the police, protection squad and the staff together and play football out on the back lawn where there had been a lovely grass tennis court in the 1930s. It was a fantastic pitch and we used to have great fun. Everyone except Diana and me went off to play, including William. Poor bloke, I think he wondered what on earth she had brought him for and he didn’t much want to play football, but, like a good sport, he did.

  Diana and I had a walk in the grounds. She reproached me gently but clearly for cancelling the June date. I wonder how I would deal with her today, but then I just broached the subject of her and Dodi straight out. She didn’t like it and I could feel the wilful side of her bridling. However, she didn’t refuse to talk about it, so we did, and also what she might do. Although the conversation had been uncomfortable at points, by the end it was warm and friendly. I tried my hardest to show that I would be a true friend to her, and she should treat the frankness in that spirit. I joined in the football game while she watched and laughed with the staff, had her picture taken and did all the things she was brilliant at. It was the last time I saw her.

  As I contemplated her death and what I would say, I felt a sense of obligation as well as sadness. I felt I owed it to her to try to capture something of what she was. We were both in our ways manipulative people, perceiving quickly the emotions of others and able instinctively to play with them, but I knew that when she reached out to the disabled or sick in a way no one else could have done and no one else in her position ever had done, it was with sincerity. She knew its effect, of course, but the effect could never have been as powerful as it was if the feeling had not been genuine. I sat in my study in Trimdon as the dawn light streamed through the windows, and thought about how she would have liked me to talk about her.

  Of course the numerous practicalities and logistics also needed to be sorted out: calls to make and to take; how the body would come back; the funeral; the business of government (would the Scottish referendum campaign continue or not, for example) – everything from the significant to the utterly trivial required focus, since at these moments the trivial can become significant suddenly and without warning.

  However, all the time the main part of my mind was going over what I would say. Robin Cook had just stepped off a plane in the Philippines and had already said something, much to Alastair’s irritation. I told him not to worry; all that mattered was what I would say, and we agreed it should be just before the church service in Trimdon Village at 10.30 a.m.

  The Palace had, of course, put out a statement, but there was no intention for the Queen to speak. Just before I left for church I had my first telephone call with her, in which I expressed my condolences. She was philosophical, anxious for the boys, but also professional and practical. She grasped the enormity of the event, but in her own way. She was not going to be pushed around by it. She could be very queenly in that sense.

  By then I had worked out what I wanted to say. I scribbled it on the back of an envelope, and discussed it with Alastair. I had talked to others of the close circle by now, but at this moment it was his advice and input I needed. His judgement in these situations was clear, exemplary and forthright. The last thing you need at a time like that is a back-coverer, vacillator or sycophant.

  The phrase ‘people’s princess’ now seems like something from another age. And corny. And over the top. And all the rest of it. But at the time it felt natural and I thought, particularly, that she would have approved. It was how she saw herself, and it was how she should be remembered. I also wanted to capture the way she touched people’s lives, and to do so in a way that acknowledged her own life hadn’t been smooth or easy. Failing to mention her problems somehow felt like being dishonest about her; and more than that, undermining what she meant to others. What they loved was precisely that she was a princess but still vulnerable, still buffeted by life’s ups and downs, capable of healing their wounds because she herself knew what it was like to be wounded.

  We drove the couple of miles to the green in the centre of Trimdon where the old church stands. It is a beautiful church with one of the few surviving Norman arches around its altar, a pretty garden and the graveyard that Lily Burton and her friends used to tend. Cherie and the children went on ahead inside. Alastair had arranged for a pooled press group to be present. I got out of the car and just walked up and spoke. It was odd, standing there in this little village in County Durham, on the grass in front of an ancient small church, speaking words that I knew would be carried around the country and the world. They would be a major part of how people thought of me. Even today people talk to me about it. You think of the great speeches, prepared over days and weeks, the momentous events
that shape modern history and in which I played a part, the political battles, the crises, the times of elation, and despair; yet those few words scribbled on the back of an envelope probably had as much coverage as anything I ever did. The key thing is to put all of that out of your mind, don’t think about how big it is, don’t feed all the inner demons who suggest all the things that can go wrong. Just go out and do it.

  Except in this case – and I know this sounds contrived – just before speaking I paused for a moment and thought of her, reminding myself that most of all I should speak for her. This is what I said:

  I feel like everyone else in this country today – utterly devastated. Our thoughts and prayers are with Princess Diana’s family – in particular her two sons, two boys – our hearts go out to them. We are today a nation in Britain in a state of shock, in mourning, in grief that is so deeply painful for us.

  She was a wonderful and warm human being. Though her own life was often sadly touched by tragedy, she touched the lives of so many others in Britain – throughout the world – with joy and with comfort. How many times shall we remember her, in how many different ways, with the sick, the dying, with children, with the needy, when, with just a look or a gesture that spoke so much more than words, she would reveal to all of us the depth of her compassion and her humanity. How difficult things were for her from time to time, surely we can only guess at, but the people everywhere, not just here in Britain but everywhere, they kept faith with Princess Diana, they liked her, they loved her, they regarded her as one of the people. She was the people’s princess and that’s how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and in our memories forever.