A time capsule sealed by Princess Diana at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital in 1991 has been uncovered, revealing a collection of items that offer a window into early '90s life. The capsule, intended to remain hidden for centuries, had to be retrieved early due to the hospital's plans to demolish parts of its campus to make way for a new children's cancer center, per NBC News.
The capsule was created as part of a competition run by the British children's show Blue Peter, the longest-running kids show in the world. Two children, David Watson and Sylvia Foulkes, helped select the contents, which reflected the technology and culture of the era. Items inside included a pocket TV, Kylie Minogue's Rhythm of Love CD, a solar-fueled calculator, a European passport, a snowflake hologram, a set of British coins, tree seeds from Kew Gardens, a piece of recycled paper, and a copy of the London Times, per NBC and Tatler.
Headlines in the Times included one on its front page that read, per the Guardian: "Cooked meats bring out Soviet voters in droves." The artifacts, kept in a lead-lined wooden box, had suffered some water damage over the years but were still identifiable. Diana, who became president of Great Ormond Street Hospital in 1989, took part in the ceremony to lay the building's foundation stone and seal the time capsule, following a royal tradition dating back more than a century.
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Staff members with ties to 1991 were invited to assist with the time capsule's removal. Janet Holmes, who worked at the hospital during that time, described the nostalgia sparked by seeing the pocket TV, an apparently coveted gadget of the period despite its modest 2-inch screen and limited battery life. "It brought back so many memories," she says. NBC notes "it's unclear what the children, who would both now be in their 40s, thought of the opening," as the hospital is "no longer in touch with them."
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