We called to see a friend and she said “I will tell you what it’s all about. I know what it’s like to live in a loveless marriage and so do a lot of other women, and we identified with her.”John SchlesingerFilm directorIt was on the radio, about 9am, and I couldn’t believe it. We were in the country, and I summoned the rest of the household We went straight to the TV to see if it was true. I felt the whole thing finally built up to a somewhat fake hysteria; certainly it was hysteria. I watched the funeral, and I also went into the park and walked down the Mall one night, about one o’clock, and ran into Ben Kingsley; he was lighting a candle by a lamppost. People had told me: “You must go down there – the silence is extraordinary”.Sir Stephen TumimFormer Chief Inspector of PrisonsI was in Spain, near Barcelona, and was woken by my wife in the middle of the night.

There was terrible pressure as the week went on and Channel 4 got more and more determined not to cover it. There was a fight all week between me and the people at Channel 4 I finished about 12 on Friday and collapsed. I woke about 11am on Saturday just as the funeral procession was starting. I thought, it’s all over now; and I felt tremendously guilty.The Venerable George AustinArchdeacon of YorkI had a phone call at about 5.15am from the BBC local radio I was just shocked.

I was taking a wedding the following Saturday on the edge of London, in my old parish, and we watched the funeral in the morning. The couple did consider postponing it, but life has to go on I tried not to say anything in the sermon I still can’t make out what was going on. I suddenly thought she was just starting to get a life and enjoy herself again, and that’s why we were all crying.Duncan GreyExecutive producer, ‘The Big Breakfast’It was the week before the relaunch of The Big Breakfast, and my girlfriend and I were in Bath We slept till about 12, quite oblivious We had no idea until my girlfriend’s mother rang up I thought “Oh my God”. Standing there were three big boys, with big tattoos, with their fists in their eyes, crying There was a simplicity to it.

It was a five-hour journey back; we stopped at every motorway service station, frenetically and furiously calling up people to work out what on earth The Big Breakfast should do I ended up staying up all night putting the show together. I went across on the ferry to the mainland, knowing nothing about it The chap who drove me didn’t say anything. I saw a copy of one of the Scottish newspapers, and I thought “This is a local version of the Sunday Sport” I didn’t quite believe it Then I looked around, and the evidence was all round me. She might have ended her days married to an Argentinian polo player.Libby PurvesBroadcasterI was on holiday in Scotland, just off Oban. Next day he would ride as race leader, not as a jumped-up domestique, and wouldn’t surrender the jersey until he dropped.Overnight the weather is transformed, as so often in the Pyrenees The sky is grey and the mountains are masked in cloud.