It was Sunday 31st August 1997.

I was staying at The Old Inn, Crawfordsburn, in Northern Ireland.

Having stayed there many times before, through business I thought nothing of it

As I checked in, having stayed there before the manager said “the cottage” was available, which was the best room. As it was a self contained cottage. I took it.

Had a table booked in the evening so went out.

On returning from meal, there was a wedding in full swing in the hotel.

I put the key in the door of the cottage and realised my bags and clothes were not in the room, it was then that my eyes met the eyes of “the bride”.

She was dressed, the best way to describe it, was she was ready to consummate a marriage.

Realising something was wrong, I backed out of the room and went to reception (lobby).

The manager explained he had made a mistake in giving us the cottage and moved us to the normal room I stayed in and had planned to tell me this when I arrived back at the hotel to pick up my key.

But I had taken the key with me.

It was then that the bride turned up at reception.

Luckily she took me apology and turned on the manager saying “you have ruined by wedding”.

Then the groom turned up, he took my apology as I thought he might punch me, he turned on the hotel manager saying “you have ruined my wedding”.

By this point a mob had started to form as other wedding guests joined in a chorus of “you've ruined this wedding”.

At this point, I backed away and went to my (new) room.

The hotel team had left a bottle of champagne in the room as compensation and I found a crowd of people from the wedding in the bar whose need was more than mine.

I then had a disturbed night of sleep to be woken up by the bar staff at 06:00 AM who spent an hour sorting the glass bottles from the night before, directly outside the window.

At that point I decided to cut my losses and go and have breakfast.

It was in the queue (line) for the Irish breakfast (think English breakfast but better) that I found out that Diana, Princess of Wales had been in a car crash in Paris with her partner Dodi Fayed. The first news reports said they thought she would recover.

But we know how that ended up.

When I left the hotel, there was nobody on reception, so I left my key and walked out.

Turning on the news later that day to hear the sad loss of Diana, Princess of Wales put it all into prospective that so many things happen to you and really they don't matter.

Life is so precious. 

The photo is of me, taken by David Watts, China in 1993.