By HILARY GAVIN
NEXT MONDAY will mark the third anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s death at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on September 8th, 2022, and I suspect you, like me, and millions of people worldwide, can remember exactly where you were and what you were doing on the day the news broke on telly, on the radio and online.
On that day, my sister and I were away on holiday in her campervan at our favourite camping and motorhome site at Pennygown on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides off the coastland of Scotland. Our beloved border collie Harry, who was on holiday with us, was approaching his 15th birthday in November 2022, but he sadly passed away just a month after Queen Elizabeth II died.
Of course, the late Queen’s demise at the ripe old age of 96 heralded the end of an era for both my sister and myself, along with our contemporaries born in the late Fifties and early Sixties, whose families had marked the trials and tribulations in their own lives against those of the Royal Family.
You could argue that every British citizen or resident has had their own unique, and often turbulent, “virtual” relationship growing up with, and then growing old with, the Royal Family who were ever constant as a backdrop in the news.
Personally, my views on the Royal Family, and its individual members, have waxed and waned throughout my life. Of course, I didn’t think much about them as a child and I wasn’t overtly contemptuous of them as a rebellious teenager.
But if you’d asked me about the Royals as a opinionated university student at Aberystwyth, University of Wales, in the early Eighties, I’d have possibly replied: “Those parasites! They’re a waste of taxpayers’ money.”
In hindsight, I realise my anger at the Royal Family, the Establishment, Westminster politicians and the ruling elite was quite naturally a rite of passage as an educated young woman trying to make sense of her life.
By the mid-Eighties, my standpoint on the Royals and politics had mellowed as I settled down with my then-boyfriend in Barnham, West Sussex. I was too busy working as a civil servant during the week and going mountain biking at weekends to be bothered about the Queen, Prince Philip, the then-Prince Charles, his young wife Princess Diana and the princes William and Harry.
At this time, Royal-mania was an alien concept to me. It didn’t compute! Yet, I have to admit, I followed Royal news (gossip) on telly.
Of course, we all took a greater interest in the Windsors in the early Nineties as it became more and more apparent that the then-Prince and Princess of Wales’ marriage was becoming increasingly rocky. Quelle melodramatic!
Now, I’m old and wise enough, at the sprightly age of 63, to know that the average man and woman in Britain is, in general, interested to a lesser or greater degree in marital gossip. If we’re being truthful, I’m sure the majority of us have been “all ears” when a close friend has nudged us to whisper: “Hey, have you heard about so-and-so. Well, I’ve been told…”
Undoubtably, our national newspaper editors were under constant pressure during the BritPop, celebrity-driven 1990s from their news barons or CEOs to increase their title’s readership circulation and so it logically followed that the Prince Charles and Princess Diana media frenzy started to spin out of control.
I doubt I need to remind anyone who was alive in Britain in the Nineties of the tumultuous real-life soap opera the Windsors gave us in those days and I’m sure the majority of us remember where we were and what we were doing when the tragic news broke that Diana [Spencer] had died in a car crash in Paris.
Back then, I was awoken by a telephone call in the early hours of September 1st, 2025, by my boyfriend’s ex who had phoned to tell him to turn on the TV.
Of course, I’d never taken sides in the Prince Charles v Princess Diana marital wrangle and I knew little about their sex lives but both my ex-boyfriend and I were glued to the telly watching updates on the fatal crash in the dead of night.
It is nigh-on impossible today to convey the outpouring of grief and the anger targeted at the Royal Family in Britain as Prince Charles flew to Paris to bring Diana’s coffin back home – and before our dutiful,”if rather stuffy”, Queen bent to the will of her subjects by addressing the nation at Buckingham Palace on television to express the Royal Family’s grief on the eve of her former daughter-in-law’s funeral which was held on an sunny Indian Summer day on September 6th.
Of course, I’ve no idea whether the so-called 2006 “docudrama” The Queen, starring English actress Helen Mirren as our late monarch and the Welsh actor Michael Sheen as Britain’s former Prime Minister Tony Blair, is a truthful depiction of the behind-the-scenes relationship conducted over the telephone between the pair in that fateful September week in 1997.
All I do know is that playwright and scriptwriter Peter Morgan penned a cracking movie which is well worth checking out if you like films.
I suppose you could argue that Princess Diana’s death in 1997 sealed the fate for sensationalist “Fleet Street” hacks with the British public years before the News of the World phone hacking scandal first broke in the mid-2000s.
If you watch The Queen or YouTube vox-pop interviews of mourners laying flowers, teddies and balloons for Diana [Spencer] outside her home at Kensington Palace in London you can hear the pulpable venom targeted at the paparazzi whom they blamed for the former Royal’s tragic death.
Of course many people didn’t distinguish between the celebrity-chasing paparazzi and trained journalists and staff photographers, such as the Sun’s Arthur Edwards who was awarded an MBE in 2003 for his “outstanding service to newspapers”.
At the time it felt the great British public viewed ALL journalists with distain and derision whilst charismatic PR spin doctors, such as Tony Blair’s Press Secretary Alastair Campbell, were being lauded as having their pulse on Cool Britannia.
It’s some time since I’ve watched The Queen, but I seem to recall the scene when Mr Campbell is triumphantly seen coining the phrase “The People’s Princess” to describe the late Diana in his role as PM Tony Blair’s scriptwriter just months after New Labour had taken office after almost two decades of Tory rule.
By doing so, the former Daily Mirror and Today political editor drew upon his skills finely tuned as a “Fleet Street” journalist to tug at the nation’s heartstrings, thereby raising his PM’s popularity with the British electorate and his standing as a global statesman.
By then, the age of PR and spin had well and truly arrived in the Civil Service in Whitehall spawning powerful press offices elsewhere in the police, NHS Trusts, our emergency services and metropolitan, county and district councils.
As our national, regional and local press declined, and the internet quickly became monetarised, PR companies, press offices, advertisers and marketeers easily fended off inquisitive journalists by branding them meddling troublemakers.
To be honest, I’ve no idea what the Chichester Observer’s revered former editor Graham Brooks, who retired in the 1990s just before I became a journalist, truly thought about the modern-day content in his old paper before he died, aged 95, last weekend. Saying that, I was intrigued to read the final paragraph of the newspaper’s Editor In Chief Gary Shipton’s tribute to his old editor in this week’s edition [3/9/2025].
As Mr Shipton wrote: “He (Mr Brooks) was courageous too – never fearing to publish an important local story even though it might offend those at the sharp end of the reporter’s pen.”
Understandably, I cannot help feeling Mr Shipton’s eulogy is somewhat disingenuous as the Chichester Observer continues unapologetically to publish unattributed stories from seemingly mysterious contributors who might have vested interests that the local readership isn’t privy to but which they should easily be able to identify.
As yet, I haven’t read this week’s Chichester Observer in full, but I did manage to plough through last week’s edition and I can now reveal to you, my discerning band of readers, who the PR and Communications professionals were behind its contributed copy. Please see the list below:
The Chichester Observer, dated Thursday, August 28th, 2025:
Contributed stories:
Page 2: Adoption of Local Plan welcomed by Chichester Harbour Conservancy
By Nicky Simmons, Communications Manager at Chichester Harbour Conservancy, as profiled publicly on LinkedIn
Page 12: Living museum celebrates 55 years with 55% off tickets
Page 17: Fontwell Park gears up for family raceday
Both stories by Rachel Soothill – Founder and Managing Director of BrightWord PR who is know to be working with the Weald and Downland Museum as per AI on Google. See BrightWord PR’s website http://www.brightword.co.uk and Rachel’s public LinkedIn profile to view her online CV
Page 13: Chichester welcomes back popular Vegan Market
By Jack Innes – Assistant Chichester Communications Officer as can be seen publicly online by readers on his Linkedin profile
Page 16: PhD student’s mission to improve domestic abuse risk assessment tools
By Bex Bastable – Press Co-ordinator at Chichester University as per her publicly available LinkedIn profile
Page 21: Best ever results yet again for celebrating CFS pupils
By Karie Wright who was the HR and Admission Officer, at Chichester Free School according to a publicly available online SussexWorld article dated March 1, 2018
Pages 22 and 23: Chichester High School students celebrate GCSE success
By Tracey Waller, Marketing and Social Media for TKAT as per her publicly available LinkedIn profile, Chichester College graduate. Marketing and social media for Chichester High School, Havant Academy, the ‘new’ TKAT ACE and TKAT SCITT programmes for The Trust.
Page 24: The Academy, Selsey celebrates a second consecutive record-breaking year
By Jo Ford who is Headteacher at Selsey Academy according to her publicly available Linkedin profile online
Page 25: Bishop Luffa students jumping for joy
By Nicky Christopher who is the Head Teacher’s PA at Bishop Luffa School as per Linkedin which is available publicly online
Page 25: Results at Ormiston Six Villages Academy pave the way to success
Ormiston Academies Trust ( as per Trust byline) Company no: 6982127 . Visit https://ormistonacademiestrust.co.uk
Pages 26 and 27: Outstanding and impressive outcomes at Seaford College with GCSEs
By Sarah Twigger, Director of Marketing and Communications at Seaford College as per her public LinkedIn profile
Page 28: Full steam ahead! New section of Centurion Way is unveiled
By Jeff Travis, Media and Public Relations Officer for the South Downs National Park Authority as per his publicly available LinkedIn profile
Page 36: Goodwood announces its Health Summit 2025 presented by Randox Health
By Kate Taylor – Marketing Manager at The Goodwood Group, who describes herself as a Creative marketeer | Advocate for professional development, empowerment and wellbeing in the workplace & beyond | Coach | Master NLP Practitioner | Speaker | Author as per her publicly available LinkedIn profile
Page 46: Community steps up for Chichester District Foodbank with sponsored walk
By Emily Lovell, who was introduced as Chichester District Foodbank’s new Communications Officer in a post on its publicly available LinkedIn profile
Page 46: Care home takes a trip to Weald and Downland Museum
By Westergate House, Barchester Healthcare
Okay, readers, by now you must have got my drift so I’ll leave it to you to read future editions of the Chichester Observer in the hope you’ll go online to research the authors of any contributed copy to make your own minds up about them.
Before I sign off, I should say that I haven’t yet got a reply to my recent open letter to the editor of the Chichester Observer asking them to clarify their selection process for publishing letters on their Opinion pages. See hyperlink below.
I doubt many people read my WordPress blog here, or my Facebook and LinkedIn posts, so I’m not holding my breath for a response anytime soon from the powers-that-be who pull the strings at the Chichester Observer.
Saying that, life never fails to surprise me so who knows what my future holds!
Link to my previous blog
Open Letter on journalistic integrity to be sent to the editor of my local newspaper – Hilary Gavin
My latest blog posts:
- Break the stranglehold: Apply for a job as a local news hound
- How old dogs can teach us all new tricks in this crazy world
- How my university days at Aber opened and closed doors in life
- Exploring Ealing Comedies: ‘Passport to Pimlico’ insights
- Villager quizzes parish council on “poor speed calming” along Hunston’s “dangerous” road
Hilary Gavin
Freelance Journalist & Writer
T/A Business ‘n’ Commas
6 Southover Way
Hunston
CHICHESTER
West Sussex
hilarygavin@grumpywoman.blog
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