503 The Royal Wedding 1981

First  viewed  : 29  July  1981

I  knew  this  was  going  to  be  a  day  of  endurance  for  me. It's  not  like  I  got  an  extra  day's  holiday  out  of  it. I've  come  round  to  thinking  that  the  monarchy  is  the  best  option  though  I  would  prefer  a  restoration  of  the  true  Yorkist  line.  At  this  time  I  just  thought  the  Royal  Family  were  a  necessary  evil  and  the  fawning  obsequiousness  of  my  mum  and  gran  drove  me  round  the  bend. Some  might  have  thought  having  such  an  ostentatious  ceremony  at  a  time  when  three  million  people  were  unemployed  was  a  bit  insensitive   but  Gran  had  an  answer  to  that. "This  will  help  with  the  unemployment  too, making  all  the  bunting"  !!

That  wasn't  actually  the  nadir  of  her  royalism. A  few  years  earlier  she'd  spotted  a  picture  of  minor  royal  Lady  Helen  Windsor  in  the  Sunday  Express , noted  a  reasonable  resemblance  between  her  and  my  sister, cut  it  out  and  sent  the  paper  a  photo  of  my  sister. She  got  the  following  reply :

Dear  Mrs  Hall

Thank  you  for  sending  me  the  photograph  of  your  grand-daughter. I  agree  there  is  a  resemblance  between  her  and  Lady  Helen  Windsor. Life  really  is  full  of  coincidences  isn't  it  ?

Yours  sincerely  

(  I  can't  remember  the  guy's  name )

Having  seen  the  topless  pics  of  Lady  H, there  must  have  been  a  dramatic  divergence  somewhere  along  the  line.

Anyhow  back  to  1981. The  Royal  Wedding  took  up  most  of  the  day  on  TV  and  I  watched  some  of  it. I  remember  Lady  Di  getting  out  of  her  carriage  and  chief  bridesmaid  Sarah  Armstrong-Jones  struggling   to  get  that  ridiculously  extravagant  dress  back  into  some  sort  of  shape. I  also  recall  her  father  leading  her  up  to  the  altar  in  clear  discomfort  after  a  recent  stroke  but  managing  to  play  his  part. That's  about  it  though.

There  was  a  silver  lining  though. Di's  ghastly, self-publicising   step-gran  Barbara  Cartland  wasn't  there. She  said  it  was  a  day  for  the  young  ones  implying  she'd  turned  down  an  invitation  but  in  truth  she  never  got  one.

We  all  know  how  things  turned  out  with  the  marriage  and  whatever  your  view  of  the  two  participants, it's  impossible  not  to  feel  a  twinge  of  sadness  that  this  undeniably  magnificent  event  was  so  miserably  undone  barely  a  decade  later. That's  had  a  lasting  impact ;  subsequent  royal  hitching  ceremonies  have  been  notably  more  low-key  and  we'll  never  see  anything  quite  as  grand  as  this  again.