Rare footage of behind the scenes of ITV News’ Steve Scott’s inquiries to Princess Diana
Rare footage unveiled by ITV News exhibits Princess Diana answering questions from the press on her landmark trip to Angola in January 1997.
The clip is a component of a brand new episode of Reporting History, by which Steve Scott – ITV News’ Africa Correspondent on the time – accompanied the princess on a go to to the nation as half of her marketing campaign in opposition to landmines.
Diana’s go to got here on the peak of worldwide debate over landmine use and drew criticism from sections of the tabloid press and the then-Conservative authorities, which urged her stance aligned with Tony Blair’s Labour Party.
The newly-aired archive footage exhibits Diana immediately addressing the controversy in a sit-down with reporters.
Scott suggests: “Can we ask the question about the political role?”
Diana responds: “I’d have thought that was the most important question out of the two. I’d go for that one.”
Scott asks if she means the political query, and Diana nods.
Diana’s crew appears reluctant, with somebody off-camera saying: “No, not the political one, you don’t mean the political one.”
But she pushes again, insisting Scott’s query is the one she want to reply.
During her time in Angola, Diana famously walked by way of a minefield cleared by the Halo Trust to focus on the plight of these maimed by army munitions.
The well-known photos of the princess made international headlines and prompted the signing of a landmine ban in Ottawa in 1998, a yr after her dying.
In the interview, Diana goes on to say the political storm over her marketing campaign was “merely a distraction, because I am not a political figure, I am a humanitarian figure and always have been and always will be.”
Scott advised Reporting History presenter Tom Bradby that he ended up getting on the identical flight as Diana, the place he spoke to her about being a mom and her plans for her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.
He recalled: “Despite the fact that this campaign was very important to her now and she was going to continue working on it, she said her priority was her boys and would continue to be her boys, and that’s where she would be focusing most of her energy going forward.”
Reflecting on her dying simply seven months later, Scott stated: “The woman that I spoke to about her sons and how important they were to her, suddenly those boys did not have that mother”.
You can discover out extra within the newest episode of Reporting History, out there on ITVX, YouTube, and all main podcast platforms.
Reporting History sees journalists be part of News At Ten anchor Tom Bradby to revisit their exceptional on-the-day studies of the defining occasions of the fashionable age. Listen to the episodes under…
