24 hours in Sydney: The Diana Exhibition
4.20pm Saturday, Queenie and I touched down at Sydney airport. 4.40pm Sunday, we boarded the plane to return to Melbourne.
Just over 24 hours in the overcast and rainy Sydney (why does it always rain when I go to Sydney?) but enough time for my friend M and I to chat non-stop about all the things going on in our lives…
So, was it worth the trip?
I think so.
Highlights of the exhibition for me were the home-movies of Diana as a child, the handwritten letters home from boarding school to her parents, her boarding school wooden ‘tuck-box’ with D.Spencer printed across the front of it…
Of course, there was THE dress. Which was darker beige than I remember it being on TV (although perhaps that was the lighting in the Museum). And it was a lot less crushed than it was as she alighted from the carriage out the front of St Paul’s.
There was also a selection of Diana’s outfits from various years. Most of which looked a little, dare I say…dowdy…up close. The blue silk taffeta polka-dotted Bruce Oldfield evening dress from 1987 truly was a shocker – but who doesn’t have an 80s evening dress nightmare lurking in the wardrobe?
My most enduring memory of the Exhibition however will be the photo albums diligently assembled and documented by Earl Spencer (apparently he kept them for each child from birth to adulthood) including an album of photos he took on the streets of London of the decorations in the lead up to the Royal Wedding. What a magnificent inheritance he created for each of his children.
Since the introduction of digital photography I’ve let my girls’ album creation slide, but seeing these has reminded me what a repository of memories and family history photo and memento albums are, and I’ll now be rethinking how I continue this process.
Queenie and I thoroughly enjoyed our short stay in Sydney…and I have another to look forward to soon!
