ALWAYS THE LAST TO KNOW

Do you remember the day you heard that Princess Diana had died?  If you’re old enough, I bet you can. It’s now getting on for a decade and a half ago now since it happened, and it’s an idea which we’ve all kind of got used to and come to terms with. Well, everyone except the leader writers for the “Daily Express” of course who still seem to regard the whole sorry incident as an “outrage”. I suppose that’s fair enough, really. The accidental death (or whatever else you personally choose to believe) of anyone when they’re really too young to go should be something to be considered outrageous, especially when they spent those last few minutes in front of the intrusive lenses of the press pack being driven at high speed by a supposedly fairly drunken chauffeur.

I’m not quite old enough to have had the “unforgettable” memory of hearing about the assassination of President Kennedy, and the self-absorbed, musically illiterate teenager that I once was (did he ever really go away?) managed to be fairly unconcerned at the death of John Lennon, although I did at least have the good grace to feel brutally appalled at that loss when it became significant to me in later years. Elvis Presley shuffling off this mortal coil really only affected me because I was delivering newspapers back then, and the pictures of “The King” in his coffin were probably the first images of a real dead body that I’d ever been exposed to, although I only really knew him from the films they showed during the school holidays.

I do remember my first experience of that stomach-churning sensation that now seizes me when I hear of a world-shattering event that seems somehow significant to me when I got home from, of all things, a church membership induction meeting (I was young, and ever eager to please…) and heard about the shooting of President Ronald Reagan, which I suppose was a turning point of sorts, but I suppose that, for my generation, it was the shock of hearing about Diana on that summer Sunday morning that will be our own “Do you remember where you were when…?” moment.

In those days I was renting a room in a house belonging to another young woman destined for a tragic end, but, as yet, that was still some weeks away. On a Sunday I would usually surface and follow whatever normal routine it was that I had back then (although precious little could have been considered “normal” during that particular long summer), and struggle through whatever after-effects I might have had to suffer with from the Saturday night just passed. At some point I would leave the house and stroll the three miles or so to the house that my mother was then living in for our (then) weekly lunch date.

It was a bright enough summer’s morning and I remained oblivious to the huge events unfolding on the world’s bigger canvas, because I’d managed to stagger through the day that far without switching on a TV set or a radio, and no-one else seemed to have surfaced for conversation of any kind that morning when I left the house. No newspapers had been bought because all of us were too impoverished back then to waste money on unnecessary newsprint, so the world seemed utterly normal as I made that familiar journey. I wasn’t aware of seeing any shocked or sorrowful faces as I walked along. Nobody stopped me in the street to share any “Have you heard the terrible news...?” moments. Perhaps seeing my happy-go-lucky, jaunty self strolling along in my carefree way, going about my business offended some of those who saw me pass by, but if it did, nobody made me aware of it. Perhaps the scary hairy real me of those times was too intimidating, but I doubt it. I don’t really think I’ve ever been capable of intimidating anyone.

My mother’s house was opposite a small newsagent’s shop, which was usually pretty packed with people trying to buy their cigarettes and papers on a Sunday lunchtime. I remember popping in there for some reason, probably to buy a chocolate bar or some other hangover recovery aid, but I know it wasn’t to buy a paper because my mother would already have bought one. I did spot some vague reference to Dodi Fayed in one or two of the headlines of the stacks of papers under the magazine racks, and began to wonder what that was about, but nobody in the shop said anything about it that I was aware of, and I paid and went on my way.

I remember (because I’ve always been a bit of a “news junkie” when it comes to the bigger events) being intrigued enough by that headline to switch on the old Sony Trinitron when I got to my mother’s house to find out what had been going on, and, in those days before the curse of 24 hour rolling news, I was able to get the gist of the story in a five minute “infodump” which at least gave us something to talk about over that Sunday’s lunch once mother returned from her churchgoing.

Later on, I strolled back home. Sometimes it really is difficult to adjust to one of those cultural cornerstones of the country’s international identity being suddenly and unexpectedly snuffed out. I wasn’t (and still am not) a particularly interested observer in the various deeds and doings of our monarchy, but I am a bit of a fan of the nation’s traditions, so, even if I affected an air of nonchalant disinterest, it still seemed to be of some significance. I didn’t feel any personal desire to break down in tears or anything, nor, in fact, did I even watch the burial service the next week, but, just for a moment, my world wobbled a little and things didn’t seem quite so certain any more.

So I arrived home, and the rest of Sunday rolled along much as it usually did, but with less to watch on the telly in those four channel days. I was pretty convinced that, as was always fairly usual with such things, I had probably been the last person in the country to find out what had happened.

However, there was also a third adult living in that house in those days, renting another room, and, as I sat mulling things over in a quiet kitchen that afternoon, she surfaced at around 5.00 PM having had a particularly late Saturday night, and, rather weirdly, I found myself in the unique position of unexpectedly having to actually pass on the day’s rather strange news, which I inadvertently mentioned on the assumption that the early morning taxis, or maybe even the late night DJs might have been already talking about the story whilst I was still snoring away and she was still partying.

I always was such a lightweight.

It became a running gag for a few weeks: “I’m always the last to find out anything… and then I tell you!” I still use it from time-to-time, if I’m being honest, although, sadly, not in that company. It’s become another one of my “little phrases” that I dig out rather too frequently. I’m sure they were all once at least a little bit endearing, but I think that they now just irritate the hell out of everyone I talk to.

In the whole new information-hungry world in which we live these days, it’s pretty unlikely that anyone would be out of the loop so long any more, unless you’re actually on a technological holiday by some kind of personal choice, and even then it does depend on which country you’re in and what kind of place you’re staying.

My last one was bliss…

The world is getting ever smaller, and so many of us are so permanently “in touch” with everything, that you’d have to be almost completely off the beaten track not to be fully briefed about something like that if it ever happened again. News seems to spread around   TwitWorld (for example… Other networking… Ah! You know the routine…) like wildfire and you can always tell a big story has broken (or has just been made up) when an unlikely name pops up as “trending” and it’s very hard to resist having a peek, and before you know it, you’re in the loop again.

A few years ago I did get a message - via more conventional means - that my fellow lodger in that house had also succumbed to a tragic early death, but that’s a story for another day, I’m sure, although I’m pretty certain that in that particular case, I actually was the last to know. Still, there are too many people leaving us far too young at all levels of society. Some of them get headlines, national mourning and state funerals, whilst others are just missed by a broken few. It does, however, always surprise me that of the three of us who spent that year in each other’s company, I’m the only one still alive.

I’d never have put money on that.