'Their honey, their jam and the dollop of cream on top' ... Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel (Channel 4)
Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel (Channel 4) was the photographers' account of her death. Diana and cameras fed off each other. "She was our bread and butter," said one snapper. Their honey, their jam and the dollop of cream on top.
The crash was done with some sobriety, a series of snapshots in black and white. It was midnight. It was underground. The Mercedes glittered blacker than black and everything white dazzled in the glare of flashlights. The only point of colour was the car's red rear light.
Henri Paul had raced away from the Ritz, mouth open, eyes wide, wearing a look of excitement or enjoyment. He soon outdistanced the following photographers. The first to reach the crash was Romauld Rat (all were French and some of the names disconcerting). He took Diana's pulse, saw she moved and breathed and, rather touchingly, spoke to her in English: "I'm here. Be cool. Doctor will arrive."
And, indeed, Dr Frederic Mailliez, who was driving in the opposite direction, saw the crash and stopped. He described Diana throughout as a beautiful lady, not recognising her at the time. During the subsequent firestorm of criticism of the paparazzi, he testified that the photographers, while continuing to press forward and take pictures, never interfered with his work. Their own films confirm this.
Photographers take pictures. That is what they do. Don McCullin, the war photographer, thrown on a lorry with the dead, dying and wounded, kept taking pictures. When asked why, he replied, "There was still some light left." Jacques Langevin, a war photographer himself, saw the crash on the way home and instinctively started taking pictures.
When the riot police arrived they confiscated all film and took six photographers and Rat's driver to police HQ, where they were handcuffed, stripped, searched and kept in cells for two days on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter. In the police photograph they stand in a hangdog line of descending height. In London, Mohamed Al Fayed's spokesman and, in Cape Town, Earl Spencer denounced them. Outside Kensington Palace a card said: "Diana hounded to death by the paperatzi." It is a misspelling that subconsciously indicted the whole press.
Nikola Arsov, like Langevin, had seen the crash on the way home. He said, "We hadn't done anything. We had a press card. We were journalists. And here we were in a Paris police station, completely naked. I couldn't believe it!" Now the photographers got a taste of their own medicine. Arsov said, "We were served up on a plate. Everyone was saying whatever they liked about us. And it sold." When he was released , there were massed ranks of cameras waiting. He slipped out of a side door and kept walking until he saw his boss waiting for him. Then he wept.
This was their story and it could not have been told without the pictures they took that night. Was it well done? When Cleopatra was found dead, a Roman soldier asked her handmaiden, "Is this well done?" and she replied, "It is well done and fitting for a princess." I wouldn't put it that strongly. It just was an honest job. Like photography.
