Thinking of Diana since Crown 6

[Sowhatsnext123]

Anyone else? I absolutely LOVE the crown. Mainly because of the powerful, haunting music. But since watching it this evening I feel really sad and nostalgic. I was only 13 when my mum woke me up crying. I remember it was thundering where I was the day after Diana died and it just felt so eerie. I didn't really like her when I was a kid because my Dad and Nan thought she was too rebellious and so I assumed the same but I was gutted when she died and so were they, as if they were sorry. I remember thinking well she was 37 she was quite old anyway! I'm now 2 years older than she was. She was far from perfect but she was such fun, such a lovely young woman. Thinking about her a lot tonight and her poor boys. I do wonder where she would be today had she lived. I don't think for a second she'd have been with Dodi for very long.

It was very surreal when she died because I'd been out clubbing and I slept in unusually late for me, so I was woken by my mum stroking my face - with the news she must have been in worried mode that there's was something wrong so came to check on me and she told me. I had no strong feelings about Diana but first thought was to be very sad for her sons. Any age is awful to lose your mum, but they were at a very vulnerable time.

My mum had served as our local mayor some years earlier and shared a longish car journey with Diana once - she said they had quite a personal conversation about bringing up kids and that it was obvious Diana felt incredibly restricted by the royal family's way of doing things and did not want her sons to be brought up by staff in the emotionally distant way her husband was. I think she'd be delighted by Harry walking away from it.

I'm the same age as you OP and my mum came and rolled me out of my bed as if a member of my own family had passed away. We all huddled into my parents bed (they had a TV in their room) for the rest of the night until Peter Sissons I think it was confirmed that she had passed away. I too remember thinking she was quite old at 37!

Yes I also love the crown. Will never forget getting up early in the morning to use the bathroom and seeing my dad wandering round the house and telling me Princess Diana is dead...I thought he must have been sleepwalking or had had a dream. My mum had died two years earlier and my sis and I were about the same ages as William and Harry.

I think if she'd have lived, the monarchy may not have survived. She was so popular. I don't believe it was an accident.

I know it sounds sad but I miss her! I really miss her and would love to have known what she could have become. However even as a very young child I remember watching her funeral and feeling so ridiculously embarrassed by the conduct of some of the "mourners". It was just beyond obscene.

The opposite happened to me. I had forgotten to put my alarm off from my Saturdsy job, which I never did, so my clock radio went off at 6.30 am, straight into the news that she'd died. I woke my parents up to tell them I vividly remember it. My room, duvet cover, everything. I wasn't even particularly interested in her. My DS's are the same age now as William and Harry were, and watching the Crown really choked me up. You really never know when your life can just change.

And I don't mean people who were sobbing quietly I mean people who were screaming hysterically as if their own homes were being burned down in front of them

When Diana died it was the first time I’d ever seen my dad cry. I was 9 and it really stuck with me for such a long time, the impact she’d had on so many people. He wasn’t even a royalist (still isn’t!) it was just so shocking.

The only other time he cried was when his mum died years later, so it really was a huge moment that morning.

Yes agree. They were ridiculous grief vampires, demanding the Royals come to London where they were keeping the actual children who had lost their actual mother in peace and quiet to be faced with hysterical strangers wailing and screaming. However I think a lot ofcthe hysteria was caused by the press, who were starting to get the blame for the paps and decided to turn on the Royals to detract from their own poor behaviour towards Diana.

I lived in Ireland at the time as a late teen and didn't even have a TV so completely missed all the hysteria.

Started Uni in autumn 1997 and one of the units on my social studies units was about histrionic UK mourners of Princess Diana. In that sense it was a vast sociological change.

I never thought anything of her prior to that, other than that she was part of the firm. I missed all the Bashir interview business because of the aforementioned living in Ireland part. No one in Ireland gave a shiny shit as far as I can recall (quite understandably).

This!! Thank you. The public became very entitled and needy to an unhealthy level

I would have liked the Crown to make more of a point of her not having her seatbelt on.

I think that was missed but I've already caught up on all 4 available episodes. I wasn't born when she was alive but my Mum loved and still loves her.

I do think she cultivated a great public image, and there's a good chance she was the caring person she carved her image out to portray, however none of us actually knew her and thus cannot really miss her.

We can feel sad for a life lost too soon and the pain and loss her boys and the rest of her family must have felt/still feel, of course.

We may also feel our own losses more actutely when we think about it all.

Remember, however, that the Diana of The Crown is a dramatised Diana, as are the other characters.

I always thought Royalists will destroy the Royal Family before any Republican movement with their overwrought entitled behaviour!

Don’t be absurd. You don’t miss her. You didn’t know her. You may miss your idea of her.

I remember being told about her death, I think my mum rang my flat. What I find really strange is the way history has been re written to make her less of a real person. I remember that in the months before she died the press had been fairly critical and then the minute she did she was deified. The press suddenly made her out to be perfect, demanded the children be brought back from Scotland immediately, the Queen was criticised for not showing enough emotion in public, the flowers thrown at the hearse, the crowds, it was all a really strange time. In the midst of everything the real, complicated human got lost. From what I've read this series is adding more lies to the myth and showing even less regard for those who knew her and loved her. It is all very sad and slightly distasteful.

I noticed they didn't have seatbelts on. The were bent over to avoid the photographers and it was obvious in the shot.

I miss Michael Jackson too. Eat me.

She showed a kind of bravery that hadn't been seen widely before, the openly hugging people with aids, the work she did highlighting the damage that landmines were causing to innocent people and her death was very sad - I wonder if she would have been a mumsnetter :-)

Fair enough but you can't deny they definitely acknowledged ALLEGED drink driving

Whilst being shocked at her death, I felt that the hysteria around that time was deeply worrying.

I felt sorry for the Royal Family who were trying to protect her sons but the weeping and braying public's demands was outrageous.

It was a dreadful time.

From what I've read this series is adding more lies to the myth and showing even less regard for those who knew her and loved her. It is all very sad and slightly distasteful.

I wouldnt go from what you've read if you haven't watched it. They did show her as a complex character, showed her relationship with Charles thawing and have made the Royals far more sensitive than they deserve. What they have done is show the British press in a pretty bad light, creating a huge lucrative market for pap shots of her and Dodi in private and mocking her when she was trying to talk about landmines. The tabloids don't like to be reminded that they hounded her before her death, even all these years later.

Reflecting that Diana died before the social media age. I wonder if the extreme public response to her death would have been different at all.

Of course the photos that the paparazzi took of Diana as she lay dying, and Dodi’s dead body in their car - which they filed with the newspapers but were never published, - would have gone viral.

Oh yes - I absolutely didn't miss that. It was well done.

Still, I think it's always good to remind the general public of the risks of driving without a seatbelt. I know thats not what the Crown cares about but two birds one stone and all that.

Although it might have been obvious and I just missed it. I need to go back and rewatch that part.

No one in Ireland gave a shiny shit as far as I can recall (quite understandably)

I lived in Ireland and was a teen at the time and it was definitely major news. My Dad woke me up that morning to tell me and we spent days watching all the TV coverage when normally my Dad would never have allowed us to spend entire days of the summer holidays watching tv. He was watching it too!

If you didn't have a TV, I can see why it went over your head but the Panorama interview was widely covered too.

Now that I am a few years older than she was when she died and I have my own kids, I am so heartbroken for her children. Harry spoke about the walkabout he and William did and having to console grown (screaming!) adults about his mother's death; it was horrendous. The Queen got such a hard time from the press at the time but she was right, it should have been dealt with privately.

I thought ah well at least she'll stop dominating the news now she's dead.
How wrong can one person be?