A Tribute Website Inspired by Diana, Princess of Wales

That Time I Went to London and Didn’t Know There was a Diana Statue at Harrods

We all go through phases. When I was about to turn 40, I dyed my hair jet black and finally finished that horror novel I had been writing. The book was published in 2009, and subsequently I became involved in the horror writer’s global community and attended several World Horror Conventions. There, I finally met in person members of the Dark Continents Publishing Company, folks I had been corresponding with on Facebook for a few months. We hit it off, and I ended up joining them on staff. It wasn’t a paid position, but in the 4 years that the company existed, I had a direct hand in editing and marketing several dozen books for many up and coming international horror authors.

One of the books we published in December 2011 was an anthology titled “Phobophobia”, and there was a formal book launch in London at the Forbidden Planet Megastore in Piccadilly Circus. It sounds as cool as it was! I had a story in the book, so of course, I had to go. I took time off work and jetted off to Britain, building in a few days to shop and sightsee. This is how I ended up at Harrods on a rainy Thursday afternoon.

If you ever visited Harrods during the Al-Fayed years, you know how opulent it was. I’ve been to all of the old school department stores in New York, Chicago, etc but 2011 Harrods was unique because it had so much space with lots of dark corners, boutiques within boutiques, Harry Potter movie sets and stores, tons of marble, and the hallowed lower ground floor candle lit shrine of Dodi and Diana at the foot of the Egyptian escalator. Their portraits hung beneath a pyramid-shaped display case containing a ring Dodi had allegedly given Diana and the wine glass she used in her last meal. It was a solemn memorial, but I didn’t really care for it – there was a distinct lack of warmth due to all of the brown stone colors and uninspiring white floral arrangements. But as a Princess Diana lover, I’m still disappointed that it was removed in 2018 by the new owners, the Qatari Royal Family.

Now, here is where things get a little fuzzy because I honestly had no idea that there was another monument to Dodi and Diana in the store. Unveiled in 2005, “Innocent Victims” is the bronze statue of the two of them dancing together and releasing an…. albatross, of all things. A quick google search reveals that the albatross bird symbolizes a burden, a regret, or a past mistake; but I’ll always associate it with a Monty Python skit… but I digress.
Imagine my surprise going down the escalator and seeing this big-ass statue, doing a double-take, and having it slowly dawn on my American brain that I was staring at Diana’s profile. I’m not kidding – I really did gasp and do a double take. Fast forward to today, and it’s hard for me to comprehend that I was unaware of Harrods’s Innocent Victims statue, but All About Princess Diana was still 13 years in the future, so even though I don’t have an excuse I can at least forgive myself for my ignorance. I rode those stairs up and down at least 7 more times; stiff-upper-lip citizens must have thought there was something deeply wrong with the middle-aged woman in the black dress and purple witch shoes who kept circling the memorial. Finding a Princess Di surprise is an intensely satisfying experience, and it was one of the highlights of my trip.
Did someone say Camilla? What does the Queen Consort have to do with this story? According to several media outlets in the UK, it was reported that Charles’s second wife made a personal request to the Qatari Royal Family to have Innocent Victims removed from Harrods. The Qataris, eager to appease the British Royal Family in an effort to re-gain the Royal Warrants which al Fayed had torn up in 2000, quickly complied. In 2018, the statue was taken out of the department store and given back to its original ownern al Fayed.
Oh, and the book signing? Who hasn’t dreamed of sitting behind an author’s desk in a famous bookstore with lines of people waiting for you to sign your book? At least 10 authors from the anthology were able to attend, including the Canadian actress Barbi Wilde, famous for playing the female Cenobite in the classic horror movie Hellraiser II. There was a particularly exciting moment when Wilde’s castmasts Pinhead (Doug Bradley) and The Chatterer (Nicholas Vince) bounded into Forbidden Planet to reunite with her, and the whole store melted down for a little while. It was humorous to watch the owner of the store chasing the Cenobites with his arms full of Hellraiser II merchandise, seeking signatures. The night ended in a book launch party, and then an after hours in a private nightclub, and then an after after hours devouring a curry and trying to find a cab at 4am in the morning, culminating in a two hour huddle of two of us on a freezing night on someone’s doorstep until the tubes start running. But that stuff isn’t really about Princess Diana, so nevermind.

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