‘No! Take it quick! This is all you’ll get!’

“She was chased to her death by a pack of dogs.” Harvey was one of the leaders of that “pack”. 😢

#newspaperinlearning

[This day, 32 years ago, from my personal diary entry]

25 January 1994

This particular day had a number of newsworthy events, and a few of among them were quite premonitory, and filled with presentiments as well!

For a quick literary flashback on the meaning of the words ‘presentiment’ and ‘premonitory’ -

Well, Jane, the protagonist of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, reflects on the nature of intuition by using the word – presentiment!

[Presentiment and premonition are synonyms, and are often used interchangeably to describe an intuitive, visceral feeling that a future event - usually negative or unpleasant - is about to occur. Both terms refer to a foreboding or a “sixth sense” about the future.]

Says Jane –

“Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key.”

In Chapter 21, we find Jane still working as a governess at Thornfield Hall, and for several nights, she has been plagued by a recurring dream of nursing a crying child - a folk superstition that Bessie (her childhood nurse) once told her was a “sure sign of trouble.”

Jane is described as sitting by the window, feeling an overwhelming sense of dread caused by these dreams. Suddenly, a messenger arrives. It is Robert Leaven, the coachman from her childhood home, Gateshead.

The “presentiment” is validated immediately. Robert informs her that her cruel cousin, John Reed, has committed suicide after ruining the family fortune, and that her aunt, Mrs. Reed, has suffered a stroke and is calling for Jane on her deathbed. This moment marks the beginning of Jane's return to Gateshead and her eventual financial independence.

In yet another incident, Jane’s terrifying dreams right before her wedding to Rochester, act as premonitions or presentiments as well.

Two nights before her wedding, Jane is alone at Thornfield (Rochester is away). She is deeply anxious. She dreams that Thornfield Hall is a dreary ruin, destroyed and abandoned.

In the dream, she is wandering through the ruins, still carrying the crying child, trying to catch a glimpse of Rochester, but he rides away without seeing her. When she wakes from this “premonition,” she discovers that someone has actually entered her room in the night and torn her wedding veil in half.

This foreshadows the cancellation of the wedding and the eventual burning of Thornfield Hall by Bertha Mason.

Well, this blogpost would hence highlight two such premonitory news items from this particular day’s newspaper.

TUESDAY, 25 January 1994

Big mishap averted in Srinagar.

India sends six proposals to Pak.

Company obtains credit through unfair means.

MLA suspended in Calcutta for playing Choli song.

India, Singapore sign three pacts.

DMK takes out huge procession.

Deface Hindi letters, DMK chief tells party cadres.

Pope for armed action in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Rabin ready to meet Assad at 'any place on earth'.

Diana Screams at photographer.

Looking back at these headlines from 25th January 1994, with historical hindsight, two of them stand out as chillingly premonitory, presentimental and prophetic!

The first premonitory news item –

“Diana Screams at Photographer”

Personally to me, this is the most haunting headline on the list. That’s because I had a great admiration for the Princess.

It was just one month ago (in December 1993), that Diana had made a famous, emotional speech announcing her retirement from public life. She had pleaded with the press for a “time to be me” and asked the press to give her space.

However, instead of backing off, the paparazzi became more aggressive!  That’s because since she was no longer doing official royal photo-ops, a photo of her became “rarer” and thus more expensive.

This news headline hence refers to a confrontation where Diana, expecting privacy after her announcement, was ambushed and finally losing her cool, screamed at the photographer.

Diana had just announced her retirement from public life. Most “official” royal photographers (like Arthur Edwards) agreed to back off. However, a new breed of “rogue” freelancers - led by Glenn Harvey and Mark Saunders - did the opposite. They realised that since she was no longer doing official poses, “stolen” photos of her were now worth a fortune.

In January 1994, Harvey and Saunders began relentlessly “stalking” her at her private locations, specifically the Chelsea Harbour Club (her gym) and San Lorenzo (her favourite restaurant). Glenn Harvey later became infamous for admitting that he treated her like “prey.”

Giving us all vignettes from his 2007 book titled, Diana and the Paparazzi (co-authored with Mark Saunders) where he openly details his ‘hunting’ tactics on a ‘Shy Di’ Diana.

Says he -

We would never follow our subject into shops or restaurants to get a picture. They were fair game on a public street, but shops and restaurants were off limits.

It was a lesson I had learned the hard way back in 1980 when I was a young photographer pursuing a new lady in the life of Prince Charles - one Lady Diana Spencer.

I was 18 years old at the time, spotty with greasy hair down to my shoulders and on one of my first assignments for a photographic agency. I had just been promoted from the position of darkroom manager and I had been given the task of doorstepping an unknown beauty who was said to be romantically linked to the future king.

Lady Diana Spencer, as she was then known, came out of her flat in Brompton Road and took a taxi to Harrods. As she left her front door for the waiting cab, I naively took my camera away from my eye and politely asked her to stop and pose for a photo.

She responded to this with the now famous ‘Shy Di’ look and a very polite and very posh ‘No, not today, thank you.’

The Shy Di look would soon become her trademark. Her eyes would be hidden under a very thick, low fringe and the flat of her face would be parallel to the ground. The public found this look endearing, but us paps found it BLOODY annoying!

In the split second that she gave her answer, lifting her head slightly, a News of the World snapper had stolen in and grabbed a half reasonable photo. ‘Christ!’ I thought. ‘If he’s got a photo, I’ll have to get one too.’ I couldn’t tell my boss: ‘Yeah, I saw her but I didn’t take a picture. Oh, by the way, the News of the World guy did get a half decent one though.’ He would have hit the roof. My job that day was to get a photo at all costs.

What was the point of me being there otherwise? This was stress as I’d never experienced it before. My target was disappearing from view up the Brompton Road in a taxi. I didn’t have a car, so I ran up the road after the taxi, cameras falling from my shoulders and kit spilling everywhere.

As the taxi sailed out of sight, I realised that I had failed miserably on my first assignment. But I didn’t give up. I continued my pursuit on foot as fast as I could, heading towards Knightsbridge.

When I got there, I was amazed to see Diana disappearing through a revolving door into Harrods. I caught up with her and, barely able to breathe, asked her again for a picture. Seeing my obvious distress, maybe she took pity on me.

She said yes, adding: ‘But don’t use any of those flashy things.’

The News of the World photographer, who I later learned was Chris Ball, had followed the taxi on his motorbike. He’d been shadowing Diana all day and must have had hundreds of images of her by now.

He came swaggering along the pavement, a sly grin peeping through his large furry beard, and followed Diana and I into the store. I explained to him the deal I had just struck with Diana as we followed her up to the womenswear department.

My heart sank when we got there. It was one of the darkest areas of the shop. There was no way I could have taken a decent image there without my flash.

‘Can we go to a room where I can at least see where you are?’ I asked cheekily.

‘No! Take it quick! This is all you’ll get!’ she replied as she buried her face in a rail of clothes.

Well, this excerpt from his book bespeaks to the metaphors of the ‘hunter’ and the ‘prey’!

In fact, even at her funeral, the Earl Spencer’s famous eulogy for his sister, referred to Diana as -

“The most hunted person of the modern age.”

Added, even Prince Harry, said in one of his interviews -

“She was chased to her death by a pack of dogs.”

Harvey was one of the leaders of that “pack”. ☹

And finally to the second premonitory news item of the day –

“Rabin ready to meet Assad...”

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was pushing hard for peace with his neighbours (like Syria’s Assad) in 1994. It was precisely these peace efforts that led to his assassination the following year (November 1995) by a radical opposed to the peace process. The headline shows him walking the path of peace that would eventually cost him his life.

His death is often cited as a turning point in history because he was killed by one of his own citizens for the very peace efforts that he was advocating!

Rabin was attending a massive peace rally in Tel Aviv (at the “Kings of Israel Square,” now renamed “Rabin Square”) to support the Oslo Accords, which aimed to establish peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Even as Rabin was walking to his car after the rally, he was shot by Yigal Amir, a 25-year-old Israeli law student and right-wing extremist.

Amir violently opposed Rabin’s peace initiatives and the signing of the Oslo Accords. He believed that by ceding land to the Palestinians, Rabin was betraying the Jewish people and endangering Israel.

It was this call for peace - with Syria, Jordan, and the Palestinians - that angered extremists like Amir and ultimately led to his death.

Any hunch here? 

The book titled, Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel (2015) by journalist Dan Ephron, tracks the parallel lives of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yigal Amir in the two years leading up to the 1995 assassination.