The death of Princess Diana and funeral.

[Jeremy Williams]

After reading that the 1982 papal visit has gone missing, i wondered about the archive status of Princess Diana's death and funeral.

I'm guessing that the whole funeral would of been kept, what was the 30 odd hours of constant news the week before kept?

I started taping from 7am that Sunday right through till 11am on Monday, got through quite a few video's, got no idea why i taped it all for. Did anyone else do this?

[Koen Br]

Going by the clips used in the C4 'Witnesses in the Tunnel' documentary a while ago, BBC World making early claims of Diana being injured only exists on VHS, and the same goes for a few other bits and pieces broadcast the following hours/days (live reporter standups etc.). I understand continuous BBC1/2 VHS recordings have been made since the early nineties, so I gather the only BBC stuff that wouldn't exist in any quality at all at the BBC might be some live BBC World stuff.

I can understand why no broadcast quality recording of BBC World output was being made before it became clear how serious the situation was, but I was a bit surprised to see VHS for material broadcast several hours (days?) after the event.

[Steve Williams]

The use of VHS in the documentary may well just be thanks to the BBC refusing to licence any proper clips.