Image: 'Althorp' book cover
 

          Making Althorp
          fit for a queen
 
Charles Spencer talks about the memorial to his sister, Diana
 
 

           Such was her appeal that everyone remembers the moment they heard of Diana’s death. My memories are of telephone calls in the middle of the night, one of which confirmed the very worst: the car crash had been fatal. It soon became clear that practicalities would have to be dealt with. While arrangements for the funeral started, so did the question of where she should be buried.
   
These were the darkest of days, when family grief was all but matched by the devastation of a nation that had witnessed the demise of someone who had seemed as far removed from death as it was possible to be.

       FOR NEARLY FIVE centuries members of the family had been placed in the chapel in St. Mary’s, Brington. Most recently my grandparents and my father had been buried there; the scaled entrance chiselled open, before being cemented shut again. In 1992, when my sisters and I placed the urn with our father’s ashes down in the vault, I had said to the three of them, “Do you realize, one of us is probably going to have to go through this sort of thing with the other three of us” It seemed that the first of those occasions had arrived, all too soon.
       Yet, just as plans were being made to place Diana with her ancestors, a message came from London that she had specifically requested in her will that her remains be buried in a coffin, rather than cremated. This worried me enormously, because ventilation would be needed; and with ventilation necessarily came some sort of access to the vault. All the ancestral bodies had been tidied up and cremated by Grandfather in the 50s, and the last three burials had been of ashes.
       There was also the question of the effect on Brington. The village was already being overrun by tourists and the media, since it was anticipated that this would be the place where Diana would be laid to rest. Put simply, it was doubtful that the village could cope.
       These were the darkest of days, when family grief was all but matched by the devastation of a nation that had witnessed the demise of someone who had seemed as far removed from death as it was possible to be.
       Anyone who has experienced the death of a close relative will know that insomnia is one of the symptoms of intense grief. It was during such a spell of listless wakefulness that I realized that we would have to bring Diana inside the Park, in order to protect her and Brington — as best we could. From there, it was a short step to deciding that the island in the Round Oval would be the best place for her to be buried. She loved water: it was her element. There was also the fact that the water would act as a buffer against the interventions of the insane and ghoulish, the thick mud presenting a further line of defence. We all agreed that, with its beauty and tranquillity, this was the place for Diana to be.
       
WE COULD NOT COPE
       Six days after the burial, at which the Princess of Wales’ Regiment had performed so magnificently, a meeting took place in the Great Room at Althorp. Present were my two managers, the police, the highway authorities, local councillors and myself. The agenda was simple: now we had seen the thousands of people bringing their floral tributes to the gates of the Park, how were we to cope with the invasion of people who had descended on Althorp and its environs, once we opened for sixty days per year, as we were legally obliged to do?
       One senior police officer pointed out that Princess Grace of Monaco’s grave apparently attracts 10,000 visitors a day during the summer. It was clear, given Diana’s even greater global appeal, that we could be facing several times that number each day we were open; and it was obvious we could not cope with that — not the Estate, not the roads approaching the area, not Northamptonshire.
       Over the next weeks a plan was formulated: we would be open for sixty days, as required; we would make each day’s ticket allocation 2,500, so preserving the dignity of Althorp; these tickets would be available only in advance, and it would be clear that nobody arriving at Althorp without a ticket would have a chance of entry; all profits would be handed over to Diana’s Memorial Fund; an exhibition would be created in the Stables to celebrate Diana’s life and mark the impact of her death. In September 1998, when the gates of the Park closed again, we would re-evaluate and decide what to do in future years.
       It was now important to put together a team to deal with the plans — plans that had to be implemented by 1 July, the date that we had agreed with the government prior to Diana’s death would be our first day of opening. It was the date of Diana’s birth. Similarly, by a strange coincidence, we were committed to be open for sixty days from then, which took us close to the date of her very premature death: 31 August.
       
EVERYTHING IS TO BE BEYOND REPROACH
[T]he media, furious that the goose that laid the golden eggs was no longer there to help their circulation figures, had decided to whip up endless accusations and controversies about my family’s plans at Althorp.

       I had clear instructions for everyone who was on the project: “Everything has to be beyond reproach; and we have to take Althorp out of the stratosphere of the conventional English stately home.” Both objectives were in honour of Diana; both were to be achieved via the best judgement of ourselves — certainly not via the howlings of the media who, furious that the goose that laid the golden eggs was no longer there to help their circulation figures, had decided to whip up endless accusations and controversies about my family’s plans at Althorp, in an attempt to create “reader interest.” It seems an unduly cruel and hurtful campaign to have undertaken against a grieving family.
       David Horton-Fawkes, a wise and spiritual man, as well as a highly professional one, was in charge of the project. He had run the corporate business in the house and Park previously, and before that had a distinguished record in hotel management. I knew our plans could not be in better hands. What is more, I knew he would see everything was finished on time which, given the fact that we had only three and a half months to get everything in order once planning permission was granted, was a major consideration..
       Having Frances Mossman on the project was also a comfort. She had been a prime creative force behind the entrepreneur George Davies in the 80s. She was also a senior adviser to the National Trust, and had undoubted artistic flair, as shown by her post as lecturer at St. Martin’s School of Art. To Frances went the task of stocking a shop which was tasteful and which used neither the name nor image of Diana to sell its wares. The results are among the most innovative and attractive range of souvenirs and gifts of any shopping outlet at a tourist site. Frances and her business partner, Fiona Sale, focused on three ranges, inspired by Althorp, by Diana’s love of natural products, and by her love of children, respectively.
       The latter was the most appealing of the three. Among the tens of thousands of condolences we received at Althorp from children, the cards of Little Heath Primary School, Potters Bar, stood out because of their vibrancy and charm. We invited the school to bring the pupils over to tour the house to see what we were planning and to establish if they were interested in allowing us to base a range of goods on their designs. They were; and the resulting products are wonderful additions to the shop’s stock, their attractiveness complimented by their freshness.
       But Frances’ involvement did not end there: she suggested others who might be able to play a pivotal role in making Althorp relevant and meaningful, never losing any of her impetus, even when being pursued and door-stepped by tabloids, eager to find controversy where there was none.
       
CLASSICAL AND MODERN
       We knew Althorp was classical and weighty. We knew Diana was modern and inspirational. The plan was to fuse the various elements to make something appropriate, something worthy of her contribution to people’s lives. It had to be tasteful and elegant, thought-provoking and satisfying; ultimately, it had to show why she became special to so many, in her seventeen years on the world stage.
       The exhibition, in Morris’s Stable Block, needed to be designed by someone who understood Diana’s modern qualities, while appreciating the beauty of the eighteenth-century building in which he or she was to work. Rasshied Din had the right approach, according to Frances. His work for Red or Dead, Ralph Lauren and Dr. Marten had the appropriate sense of style, while his commissions for W.H. Smith and the British Airports Authority, although perhaps lacking glamour, showed how seriously he was to be taken as a top-flight designer.
       Rasshied’s trademarks are clean, simple lines, and clever use of light and space. He has produced six rooms out of the former carriage houses and stabling areas, in which Diana’s life and death are set in context. In other parts of the Stables, he has transformed the old-style tea room into a modern, sweeping restaurant, using many of the old features of the time when this was a place for horses, and making it suitable for the most discerning of visitors.
       Across the yard, he has given Frances the most modern of shops, with a handsome slate counter and innovative display areas. Everything is crisply presented, relevant and clean-cut. We have kept the shop small, because commerce is not the point of the exhibition, or of its attendant services; serving the public is.
       It is a truism that the public really do notice the standard of loo provided for them at venues such as Althorp, so it was decided not to stint on making them of the highest quality: everyone appreciated that many people would see their day at Althorp almost as part of a pilgrimage on Diana’s behalf, so portaloos in the corner of a field would clearly be inappropriate. Thirty-three tonnes of Northamptonshire ironstone, as near as possible to the material used by Morris two and a half centuries ago, have been used on the construction of the loos and the improvements of the Stables. The doors and partitions of the cubicles are oak, the dominant tree of the Park. To give an idea of the number of visitors that are expected, the cesspool is 165,000 litres — the same size as three chemical tankers — and we are informed that it will have to be emptied weekly when Althorp is open.
       The scale of works has been huge. Barry, the foreman from Jesse Mead, has been a source of optimism and cheerfulness throughout the building: “I haven’t been late on a project yet in my career and I’m bloody well not going to make this the first time!” was his reassuring view of things. On average, he has had 160 men per day working at Althorp. To put that into perspective, the caterer at the on-site burger bar for the men claims to have served them 30,000 bacon rolls between March and the end of June.
       It has not all been bricks and mortar, though. The Stables being such an important listed building, the local planning officers have rightly insisted that everything be done to the highest standard: the plaster has been packed with real horse hair — two large horses’ worth; the old, pitted floorboards have merely been covered with a new layer of oak, rather than being ripped out; the two staircases, butchered and hacked around in the 80s, have been put back where they were when this building was at its zenith. Most dramatically, the front doors in the two forward towers, overlooking the front lawn, have been put back, the stone that had been in their place removed, giving the Stables back its proper features for the first time this century.
       All this primarily to set off the exhibition to its best effect. The business of making the exhibition relevant and fulfilling fell to Catherine McDermott, another contact of Frances Mossman’s, an experienced curator who could juggle the expectations of the public with her expertise in fashion, and the confines of the spaces on offer for displaying the various items.
       
THE ‘SPENCER WOMEN’
If there was something we could do at Althorp, which nobody else possibly could, it was to set Diana in context.

       It was decided to break the exhibition down into seven rooms, each with its own theme. The first is called “Spencer Women.” If there was something we could do at Althorp, which nobody else possibly could, it was to set Diana in context. So here we have Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, with some of her jewelry, and her greatest portrait, by Sir Godfrey Kneller; here also, by Sir Thomas Gainsborough, Georgiana Spencer, later Duchess of Devonshire, and one of the most glamorous figures in eighteenth-century England, who used to cause similar reactions among the people of London during her public appearances, as Diana did, 200 years on; also Lavinia, Second Countess Spencer by Joshua Reynolds, another independent, ground-breaking woman, friend of Nelson and Joshua Reynolds, who painted this portrait; fourthly, Charlotte, the Red Earl’s wife, and the hand behind the Patchwork Bedroom, who was considered one of the great beauties of nineteenth-century England; and then Grandmother, in a cool sketch by John Singer Sargent, a lady who, a quarter of a century after her death, is still remembered with love by the people of the county for her charitable work — to the extent that they named the hospice in Northampton after her.
       To the world at large, Lady Diana Spencer first came into prominence in 1980 or 1981; but the point is, she did not come from nowhere. By showing the themes she was continuing, it is easier to make sense of her later contributions. She was always proud to be a Spencer, and this room explains why.
       The next room is perhaps the most startling, with its cine footage of Diana’s childhood, shot lovingly by my father: her christening; her first winter; her first birthday; her first steps; her love of animals; her passion for swimming; her setting of for her first term at boarding school. When I first watched all the footage — and there was an enormous amount of it, from which four minutes were selected for the public — it was an incredibly harrowing experience. To watch these carefree times, with the willowy little girl delighting in life, and yet know what was to happen to her thirty-odd years later, lent the screening all the elements of dramatic irony that I could live without.
       
TOO PERSONAL, TOO DRAINING
To watch these carefree times, with the willowy little girl delighting in life, and yet know what was to happen to her thirty-odd years later, lent the screening all the elements of dramatic irony that I could live without.

       At first, I had hoped to edit it myself; but it was too personal, too draining. The job went to Tim Ashton, a London creative director, who has added a deeply moving music track to go with the film, down to the final flickering of the frame, as it freezes on Diana at her happiest and most humorous.
       The third room deals with the glamour and excitement of the Royal Wedding, the dress taking centre stage, as well as many other mementoes of that portentious day in 1981.
       From there, it is on to a space dedicated to Diana’s charitable and humanitarian work, underlying why people appreciated her, and stressing the arduous nature of her working life. A film is shown on three screens, simultaneously; sometimes with the same images on all three and at other times with different ones appearing, to capture the volume and variety of work achieved by Diana in her public life. Testimonies from her charities to her extraordinary effect on their morale, bank balances, staff and recipients adorn the walls.
       On into the Tribute Room, an evocation of those doom-laden days between Diana’s death and burial, when the public were reduced to shocked silence in their attempt to digest the death of a much-loved icon. Here is another Tim Ashton-edited video, and other items, including the original text of my Tribute to Diana, written by me in the early hours of Wednesday following her death. It probably sounds pompous, but it was a privilege to deliver it for her, in the way I know she would have wanted it.
       We want to celebrate Diana’s life, and not just to mourn her death, so the final room — the main one in the Stables — is made over to her glamour, with huge cases displaying her finest clothes again, in context and not simply as a fashion parade. As the visitors pass these, their eyes will be drawn to the huge glass case at the end: the resting place of just a few hundred of the many thousands of condolence books from around the world, banked one on top of the other, giving a final sense of scale of the impact of Diana’s life and of her death….
       Copyright 1999, Charles Spencer, St. Martins Press.