A time capsule buried by Diana, Princess of Wales at Great Ormond Street Hospital (Gosh) in 1991 has been opened, revealing a Kylie Minogue CD, a solar-powered calculator, and a passport.
The lead-encased wooden box was sealed to mark the laying of the foundation stone of the hospital's Variety Club Building, which opened in 1994.
The items in the capsule were selected by two children who won a Blue Peter competition and were intended to represent life in the 1990s. Other objects included a pocket TV, a snowflake hologram, and a photo of Princess Diana.
The time capsule was meant to be unearthed in hundreds of years but was dug up to make way for the construction of a children's cancer centre.
Princess Diana became president of Gosh in 1989 and visited the children's hospital several times before her death in 1997.
She helped the two children select the items to be placed in the time capsule.
The CD of Kylie Minogue's Rhythm of Love album, released in 1990, features the songs 'Better the Devil You Know', 'What Do I Have to Do', and 'Shocked'. The CD was chosen by David Watson, then aged 11, who also selected a sheet of recycled paper and a passport.
Sylvia Foulkes, aged 9 from Norwich, chose a collection of British coins, a container with five tree seeds, and the snowflake hologram.
The box also included a copy of the Times newspaper from the date of the capsule's burial, with headlines such as Cooked meats bring out Soviet voters in droves featuring a photo of Mikhail Gorbachev.
Staff who were either born in 1991 or working at the hospital at the time facilitated the removal of the time capsule. This event mimicked a ceremony in 1872 when the then Princess of Wales, Alexandra, laid a foundation stone and sealed a time capsule that has yet to be found.
The new children's cancer centre at Gosh will serve as a national resource for the treatment of childhood cancers, according to hospital officials. Its design aims to help clinical teams develop kinder, more effective treatments for children admitted to the hospital.
