THE first official memorial to Diana, Princess of Wales was opened
yesterday, with no members of the Royal Family present to witness the event.
Earl Spencer arrived at Kensington Gardens with his four children - Kitty,
nine, eight-year-old twins Eliza and Katya, and Louis, six - to watch the
unveiling of the £3 million memorial walkway and playground. The Princess's
brother, who had initially declined to attend the ceremony, said he was not
disappointed by their absence.
He said: "It's not upsetting at all. People came who wanted to come and it
was a happy occasion. One of my sisters did not want to come because she
thought she would be overcome by the emotion of it all." Tributes to the
Princess were led by her close friend Rosa Monckton, whose five-year-old
daughter, Domenica, was the Princess's last godchild.
She said that it was "a shame" that members of the Royal Family were not
present, but insisted that their absence should not detract from "such a perfect
memorial to Diana". She said: "So much has been speculated, often
scandalously, about her life that we are in danger of forgetting how passionate
she was about children, about their happiness and welfare, which coloured
everything she did."
"She was an extraordinary person despite her status. Her status gave her the
scope to use the gifts she had. She is remembered not as Diana Spencer, not
as Princess Diana, but as Diana to everyone all over the world. She will be
remembered for her kindness and the power of her spirit."
Her daughter, Domenica, who has Down's syndrome, performed a touching
tribute to her godmother when she helped to open the playground by untying
a ribbon. "I open this garden for godmother Diana," she said with the help of
her mother.
Buckingham Palace and St James's Palace dismissed suggestions that the
Royal Family had "snubbed" the event, saying they were committed to other
official engagements. Prince William and Prince Harry chose not to attend for
"private reasons". Around 200 people, including children from charity groups
and local schools, were invited to attend the opening of the memorial, which
was funded by the Government's allocation to the Royal Parks Agency.
The Chancellor, Gordon Brown, chairman of the Diana, Princess of Wales
Memorial Committee, said the playground and walkway were a fitting tribute
to the Princess's love of children. He said: "This is a place of celebration for
what in her short life she achieved and what she wished for everyone in the
community."
The £1.7 million playground, which is close to the Princess's former home at
Kensington Palace, has a strong Peter Pan theme, in honour of the author J M
Barrie, who funded the original site in 1906. Its centrepiece is a 50ft pirate
ship with 35ft mast, which is one of the site's six play areas.
The £1.3 million Diana Memorial Walk, described as "one of the most
magnificent urban parkland walks in the world", passes through Kensington
Gardens, Hyde Park, Green Park and St James's Park.
~*~
Princes not at opening of shrine to
Diana (Uk Times)
BY ALAN HAMILTON
THE Prince of Wales, pleading a prior engagement,
busied himself in Dorset yesterday as a memorial
playground and footpath to his late former wife was
opened in London.
Princes William and Harry were also invited, but declined
to face the media attention at the ceremony to inaugurate
the Diana, Princess of Wales memorial playground and
walkway in Kensington Gardens, within sight of the
Princess's former home. St James's Palace said it was
possible that the Princes might make a private visit in the
future.
Earl Spencer, the Princess's brother, who had been
invited only the day before, arrived with his four young
children, but took no part in the ceremony. Asked if he
regretted the absence of royalty, he would say only: "I
think anyone who wanted to attend could attend, and
that's fine." The earl's two sisters also stayed away
because they would have found the occasion too
emotional, he said.
It was left to Rosa Monckton, a close friend of the
Princess and a member of the official memorial committee,
to perform the opening ceremony with her daughter
Domenica, 5, who has Down's syndrome and to whom
the Princess was godmother.
Ms Monckton, who heads a charity for children with
special needs, said it was "sad" that no member of the
Royal Family had agreed to attend the opening. "But I do
not want anything to detract from today, because this is
such a perfect memorial to Diana." The Princess would
have been 39 today.
Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, who gave £3 million of
public money to the Royal Parks Agency to build the
memorial, was there with Alan Howarth, the Arts
Minister, and 100 children.
Ms Monckton said of the Princess: "So much has been
speculated, often scandalously, about her life. We are in
danger of forgetting that she was passionate about
children, their happiness and welfare, which coloured
everything she did."
She continued: "Her death had such an impact. It was not
about the family she was born into, or the family she
married into. She was an extraordinary person, despite
her status. Her status gave her the scope to use the gifts
she had."
Struggling against her disability and prompted by her
mother, Domenica untied the ceremonial ribbon and
spoke the sentence: "I open this garden for godmother
Diana."
A small crowd, some of them carrying flowers to place at
the latest shrine to the Princess, peered through the railings
as the children and invited guests watched actors perform
a scene from Peter Pan, whose author J. M.Barrie
funded the original playground on the site in 1906. The
site was opened to the public for children to enjoy its
wooden pirate ship, wigwams, fountains and a huge
sandpit.
Residents have been largely assuaged by the decision not
to go ahead with a plan for a large memorial garden in the
park, which they feared would attract thousands. Ethne
Rudd, secretary of the Kensington Society, said: "We
accepted this as a compromise, but we feel slightly
cheated; we were told it would be the same size as the
original playground, but it is at least one third bigger." Mrs
Rudd also thought that the six-mile memorial walkway,
which winds through five royal parks, would be little used,
except by a few tourists.
~*~
Prince's father fears for the less
fortunate (UK Times)
BY ANDREW PIERCE
ONLY days after Prince William left Eton at the end of
his schooldays, his father's most trusted aide has predicted
a bleak future for thousands of less privileged
school-leavers.
Tom Shebbeare, chief executive of the Prince's Trust,
laments the continuing lack of apprenticeships and
vocational training courses for aspiring builders, plumbers,
and welders.
The carefully coded criticism of the Blair Government by
Mr Shebbeare, in an article in The Times today, was
made with the full backing of the Prince of Wales.
There was immediate support from trade unions. Barry
Sheerman, Labour chairman of the Commons Education
Select Committee, called for a revival of the "wartime
spirit" to help unskilled youngsters to secure vocational
training.
In his article Mr Shebbeare invokes the name of William
Windsor, the country's most famous school-leaver, to
contrast the fate of those pupils who go on to higher
education with the ones who disappear off the education
radar to become part of the growing skills shortage.
Prince William is planning a gap year before studying
history of art at university, subject to his A-level passes.
But those who do not go on to university are being
ill-served, Mr Shebbeare says. Britain is falling behind
Germany, which boasts a strong system of
apprenticeships and technical colleges, he adds.
In the most controversial passage Mr Shebbeare
emphasises that the Prince of Wales "became increasingly
concerned" about the problem in the "late 1990s" - when
Labour returned to power.
Mr Shebbeare, who wrote a book in the 1980s with
Peter Mandelson, now Northern Ireland Secretary, on
how to tackle youth unemployment, says that vocational
training has been neglected in the drive for a knowledge
economy.
The result is that one third of school-leavers go on to
university, with the Government committed to increasing
the level to a half. Mr Shebbeare writes: "The flip-side of
this impressive academic coin has been a steady
devaluation of our occupational skills, a trend accelerated
by that same long-term shift in the nature of work."
Mr Shebbeare, who went to work for the Prince in 1987
and became chief executive of the Prince's Trust the
following year, says: "There is a hell of a lot of room for
improvement. The position is nowhere near good enough.
Prince Charles feels passionate about this."
The trust, which has helped 400,000 disadvantaged young
people and 40,000 to start their own business since it was
set up in 1976, is holding a £3 million five-day skills
festival at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham
next week. Up to 50,000 young people are expected to
attend the event.
The festival, an attempt to revive interest in vocational
courses ranging from stone masonry to hairdressing, will
be visited by the Prince on Thursday. David Blunkett, the
Education and Employment Secretary, will also be
present.
Only last week the National Skills Task Force set up by
the Government in 1997 reported that one in four firms
reported that it was unable to fill vacancies because
applicants lacked the basic skills. The result was that
many jobs were filled by overseas applicants.
Mr Sheerman said that while improvements in training
were planned it would be too late for the current crop of
school-leavers. "There are so many kids who leave school
to do nothing," he said. "My personal ambition is to
recreate a wartime atmosphere where everyone pulled
together in times of emergency. We have to take this
seriously. We have to have high ideals. People pulled
together at times of war. We should do it now."
Bert Clough, senior education and training officer at the
TUC, said: "There is a worrying number of young people
who leave school and disappear into a black hole. They
do not get training. There has been a huge decline in
apprenticeships, which is even greater than the declines in
manufacturing jobs. We need a more systematic way of
training young people."
~*~
REMEMBER DIANA(UK times)
The Diana Memorial Playground in Kensington Gardens
which was opened yesterday is the most successful
commemoration of the late Princess of Wales. Cynics claim
that it is the only successful one.
Nothing to do with Diana, Princess of Wales, is free from
controversy. So populist indignation about the absence of
any member of the Royal Family from the opening
ceremony was whipped up. But the playground itself is a
brilliant evocation of Barrie's Never-Never Land, in the
park where the Lost Boys fell out of their perambulators
and into childhood fiction. There is a galleon where children
can climb the rigging, a wigwam encampment for Tiger Lily
and her modern braves in their fleeces from Gap, and a
lagoon with intimations of crocodile and mermaids.
And, unlike any other such construction in memory, the
playground has been finished on schedule for what would
have been the Princess's 39th birthday today. It has come in
within budget of £1.7 million. For once, Earl Spencer, the
late Princess's brother, refrained from stamping his foot in
his mouth yesterday. He refused to say anything. And even
the jealous local guardians of Kensington Gardens can
scarce forbear to cheer, if only because the new playground
occupies a mere two acres of their sacred grove. In
contrast, the original Genghis Khan plan would have taken
over a quarter of the park for the pilgrim hordes.
Kensington Gardens is the right place for her first memorial.
The Princess jogged and relaxed and found a little privacy
there. She walked her children down the Broad Walk,
where Queen Victoria once played. Diana loved children.
So her playground is more prudent than the lapsed project
to squirt the filthy soup of the Round Pond 300 feet into the
air. It is more appropriate than the idiotic proposal to open
a road through the park for cyclists and in-line skaters.
They already break the bylaws by pedalling all over the
park, to the danger of child and beast.
Kensington Gardens is a tranquil delight for visitors to
London from the whole country and the wide world. But
Kensington is not a deprived patch. It has many fine parks.
Since the first Diana Memorial Playground has turned out
so well, it should now be replicated. The Diana Memorial
Fund attracts vast sums of money, which continue to grow
like Jack's beanstalk. Why squander it on problematic
projects such as enriching Californian lawyers? With its
resources, the fund could build a Diana Playground in every
city centre. That would be the best memorial for the
Princess who loved children.