Royal wedding which captured the imagination
IT was a fairytale wedding that captured the public’s imagination this week in 1981. The whole world watched, but here in Gloucestershire there was an extra special sprinkling of magic dust because local people knew that after the pomp and ceremony in the nation’s capital city, the handsome royal couple were coming home to live in our county.
The Citizen celebrated by publishing a souvenir supplement from which all the illustrations you see here are taken.
Packed with information, speculation, facts and trivia, 36 broadsheet sized pages captured the mood of the moment. Royal romance.
“What will Lady Diana wear tomorrow? That’s the question everyone wants an answer to” declared the supplement’s introduction, alongside an advert announcing those wishing to swim or roller skate at the leisure centre in Barton Street could do so for half the usual admission price.
The Citizen reminded readers that on the fashion front it was without doubt true that where Lady Di led, others followed.
“Remember that strapless, black
evening dress, the knickerbockers and the blouses which have become high street fashion overnight?” teased the paper.
“This might be the one occasion when she prefers to stun by the sheer simplicity of, say, an ice white taffeta gown with perfectly plain lines”.
Readers eager to devour fascinating snippets about the future Princess of Wales learned that Diana enjoyed evenings at the theatre, films, meals with friends and visits to the country and that at the end of her working day as a nursery assistant in Pimlico, she would drive home in her car or, weather permitting, ride her bike unperturbed by the dusty London streets.
Charged with writing an in-depth biography piece about the groom-tobe titled “Charles – born to be king”, an unnamed Citizen reporter managed to unearth hitherto revealing gems about HRH’S formative years.
At the age of 14 when at Gordonstoun school, for example, Charles took part in a rowing expedition to the Isle of Lewis.
The pupils were given permission to take lunch at a hotel then go the cinema.
Instead, the prince nipped off to the cocktail bar and ordered a cherry brandy.
The coincidence was pointed out that, like Diana, Charles could ride a bicycle.
This he was wont to do in Cambridge when an undergraduate followed by his personal bodyguard in a Land Rover.
Buying Highgrove, the 300 room Georgian mansion near Tetbury, continued the theme of Charles being very much his own man.
“He could have had the choice of several of the country’s most desirable stately homes” suggested the supplement, “but found Highgrove more to his liking”.
Possible reasons for choosing Highgrove, mooted The Citizen, were that his sister Princess Anne lived nearby, it was handy for polo at Cirencester Park and hunting with the Beaufort, plus the fact the house came with 347 acres, so Charles could be a farmer like his ancestor George III.
But perhaps the prince was simply continuing a tradition, as a piece on page 15 sought to assert by logging the legion of royal connections with Gloucestershire.
These were said to stretch back to distant days when the first Christian monarch of Britain, King Lucius, was crowned.
Lucius, it seems, might have been buried on the spot now occupied by St Mary de Lode church in Gloucester, although the writer conceded that this was widely thought by all authorities on the subject to be unlikely.
The Celtic king of Gloucester, named Commail, was killed in combat.
King Osric founded the abbey of St Peter that became Gloucester Cathedral.
Gloucester was once home to a royal mint.
Edward the Confessor came to the city for a number of Christmases.
And then the course of history was changed when Kings Canute and Edmund Ironside did battle hereabouts.
The site on which this epic event took place was, we learn from the Citizen’s supplement, destroyed when Gloucester Docks were built.
Some Citizen readers, stirred by the
right royal occasion, put poetic pen to paper. This verse came from a gent in Churchdown.
Inside the cathedral everybody rose, As he walked to the altar in debonair manner.
There, with his best man he awaited, The arrival of the bride, lovely Lady Diana
Unfortunately space doesn’t allow the poem to be printed in its entirety.
The Citizen’s supplement, like so many others of its special publications that have appeared over the years, is a delightful time capsule of its moment.
The adverts remind us that 38 years ago you could travel by train to Birmingham from Gloucester and back for £4.66, you could buy a brand new
Mazda for £3,399 and that you could have acquired a royal wedding commemorative mug for 75p.
Maybe you have the latter on your mantelpiece even now.
It was a time much more deferential than today.
But knowing how the fairytale wedding ended as we do, perhaps the most poignant paragraph is tucked away at the back of the Royal Wedding supplement 1981.
“What’s in the stars for Charles and Diana?” It concludes: “As they are both water signs (she a Cancerian, he a Scorpio), Prince Charles and Lady Diana could not be better matched.”