PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Death of King George VI and accession of HM Queen Elizabeth II
Old 12th Feb 2022, 11:59
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Geezers of Nazareth
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: West London
Posts: 382
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A slight tangent to the message about 'souvenirs of a tour that didn't happen' ...

The car-crash in Paris that caused the death of Princess Diana occurred late on a Saturday evening. Possibly the worst time for a major story for anyone in the printed press. On Saturday evening all the newspapers are finalised, being printed and bundled, and being sent out to wholesalers and shops up an down the country. The very last thing you need is for a major story to break which needs to be on th front-page, and for the story to rapidly evolve overnight.
Back then, a friend's father was a keen angler. Every Sunday he and a few mates would head-off to a river-bank somewhere and spend the day attempting to outwit the fish. Friends fathers job was to buy some milk and newspapers each Sunday morning so that they could have a brew and read throughout the day.
On this particular Sunday morning (he'd not had the radio on, so hadn't heard the news) he went into his local corner-shop to find that there were no papers on display. He asked the shopkeeper, who told him the news, and that all the newpapers had to go back to the wholesalers so that their front-page/cover could be replaced with a reprinted version. Thinking quickly, he asked the shopkeeper for something which he knew was stored out the back of the shop; while shoppie was away he quickly snaffled a few copies of the newspapers and stuffed them in his bag.
Later that morning all the newspapers came out with page 1 headlines saying 'Diana killed' or similar ... he's got one that says 'Diana injured in car crash'!
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