Letters issued by the UK National Archives showed opposition to the plan was that the rewritten lyrics were “too sentimental”, PA Media reported.
Abbey also arranged for a saxophonist to be on standby to deliver a solo instrumental version of the song, but this was deemed “very second best shot”.
The dean, The Very Reverend Wesley Carr, successfully argued that allowing John to be present would be an “imaginative and generous” gesture to the public.
Diana died in a car accident in Paris on August 31, 1997, causing a wave of public mourning.
“Candle in the Wind” was originally written in memory of Marilyn Monroe, but was widely taken up and played as a memorial to the princess, who was John’s friend.
In his 2019 memoir, John described how he almost saw actors Richard Gere and Sylvester Stallone fight Diana at a dinner party held in the early 1990s.
Diana and Gere met so famously that they spent most of the evening sitting on the floor by the fireplace, “locked in spirited conversation.”
This apparently didn’t go down well with Stallone, and the two actors soon went down an aisle. Only a hasty intervention by John’s partner, David Furnish, averted a potential fight.
John writes, “If Diana made me bold, it was nothing compared to the effect it had on straight men.” “They used to completely lose their mind in his presence.”
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