A time capsule, sealed by Princess Diana in 1991, has been removed from a children's hospital in London to enable the construction of a new cancer centre.
The workers, some of whom were born in 1991 or were working at the hospital that year, helped remove the capsule containing several objects, including a portable television, a Kylie Minogue CD and some tree seeds, according to a press release Wednesday from Great Ormond Children's Hospital (GOSH).
Janet Holmes, Senior Health Games Specialist, who worked at GOSH in 1991, said her favourite object was the portable TV. “It brought back a lot of memories for me looking at the portable TV in there – I had bought one for my husband once, for when he had breaks while driving buses around the country. They were very expensive back then!” Holmes said, according to GOSH.
The late Princess Diana, Princess of Wales, was president of GOSH in 1989 and was known for her regular visits to children at the hospital in the heart of London. She attended the time capsule ceremony in March 1991, when GOSH was laying the foundation stone of the Variety Club building.
Two young people who won a national competition provided the objects for the capsule. They were asked to suggest objects that represented life in the 1990s. There was also a solar-powered calculator, a collection of British coins, a snowflake hologram, a sheet of recycled paper and a European passport.
Rochana Redkar, Clinical Fellow in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology and the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, was very excited about the capsule release. “It was so wonderful to be a part of this event.
“I had only started working at GOSH six months earlier and I was so excited to be involved in removing the time capsule, which had been buried the year I was born!” said Redkar, according to the press release.
