Reports of Queen Mother's death exaggerated

IF THE Queen Mother had been able to listen to Australian radio yesterday, she would have had a unique glimpse of how the world may react when she dies.

In the space of half an hour yesterday morning, four prominent Australian radio and television stations, including the state-owned Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), broadcast the 'news' that the Queen Mother had died. The reports prompted tearful calls from the public to radio phone-in programmes and a discussion of how the monarchy would survive the passing of the 93-year-old matriarch.

It started when an Australian working for Sky News in London saw a test run of the Queen Mother's obituary. Thinking it was the real thing, he rang his mother in Brisbane to tell her. She, in turn, rang her local radio station, 4BH.

The station is reported to have 'confirmed' the story not by consulting international news agencies or telephoning Buckingham Palace but by ringing back the videotape editor who had got it wrong in the first place. Sky said yesterday he had been sacked. The report was then picked up by other commercial stations around Australia and the usually reticent ABC, whose newsreader somberly announced: 'News just to hand. Unconfirmed reports from London say the Queen Mother has died.'

Within minutes, John Laws, the host of a high-rating Sydney radio phone-in programme, was taking a call from a woman choking back tears. 'It was expected,' Laws told her. 'She was the darling of the Royal Family. I just wonder what direction the Royal Family might take now.'

Buckingham Palace denied the reports when they got back to London, and the Australian stations ran instant retractions. They also indicated that heads were rolling in their newsrooms.