4 days ago
Live Aid volunteer sat behind Princess Diana at Wembley
A volunteer who helped Bob Geldof organise lorries to take charity aid to Africa has been reminiscing about how she sat in the royal box for the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium 40 years ago. Dee Flower, from Bexhill, East Sussex, was sat three rows behind Princess Diana at the celebrated day-long concert on 13 July 1985 as a guest of the charity founder. She will reunite for the first time since the concert with Geldof, who lives in Faversham, Kent, at a gala event in London on Flower said he was "fabulous, absolutely lovely" but "didn't suffer fools gladly".
She added: "He was on your side and just brilliant."Ms Flower worked in 1985 in sales for the magazine Motor Transport, which is about trucks and haulage. She said: "I heard Bob Geldof give an interview on BBC Radio 1 saying that one of his biggest problems was getting trucks and hauliers to get supplies to Ethiopia."I heard it and thought 'I could probably help with that'."I rang up Radio 1 and they said 'could you come straight here. Bob wants to meet you'."She said: "My meeting with Bob was a bit surreal, really. "He listened to me and said 'that sounds absolutely brilliant, go and do it'."
Ms Flower's volunteer role for the next six months, alongside her day job, was to use her contacts to get trucks "cheaply or for free" and persuade hauliers to transport supplies to Tilbury said: "One night I was sat in Bob's London house discussing our progress and he said 'I'm thinking of doing a concert and doing it in two countries'."When I think I was there when he said that, it really was quite unbelievable."Live Aid followed just a few months later and Dee and other volunteers and hauliers were invited to be special guests of Geldof on the day.
She said: "Just a few days before the event he told us 'you're all going to be presented to Charles and Di'."Ms Flower said she was in the same room as all the Live Aid performers waiting to meet the royal couple."Whilst waiting I went up to David Bowie and asked him for an autograph.
"When Status Quo started the day with Rockin' All Over The World I just burst into tears. "It was so emotional."Looking back exactly 40 years on, she said: "I feel privileged to have been there, proud and very grateful.""It really, really was just incredible. "The whole day seemed to pass as a dream."
