Remembering Diana

Nora D.S. Robins is co-ordinator of Internal Collections at the
University of Calgary Libraries.

On June 14, 1983, the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived in Halifax to
begin a tour of Atlantic Canada. In the next two weeks they visited
Halifax, Shelburne, Bridgewater, and Lunenburg in Nova Scotia, and
Rothesay, Campbellton, St. Andrews, and Saint John in New Brunswick. In
Newfoundland they were welcomed to St. John’s, Cape Spear, Carbonear,
and Harbour Grace. Their last stops were in Charlottetown, Montague, and
Summerside in Prince Edward Island.

Eric Hayes and David Nichols, both Nova Scotia photographers, joined
the mob of international media covering the royal tour, with the goal of
“[capturing] the royal visit from an Atlantic Canadian perspective,
[and recording] how Charles and Diana touched the communities of the
Maritimes and Newfoundland, and how they, in turn, were touched by those
communities.”

Remembering Diana is the result of their efforts. The books consists of
one-and-a-half pages of text and 72 pages of color photographs. The
photographers have succeeded in capturing the excitement of the crowds
as well as the charm of the royal couple. The Diana of 1983 had been
married for only two years and had not yet emerged as a style leader.
Here she appears as a shy, rather dowdy, sweet “new royal” Given her
early demise in September 1997, the pictures cannot help but evoke
sadness.