Public reaction when Princess Diana died

[StressedOutSemolina]

Who remembers it? I was just turned 13 and I cried upstairs whilst looking up at the sky, I was really upset by it. It was thundering where I lived making the whole sad day even more eerie. BUT that was it. I cried at home, privately and quietly. Then got on with it.

Then I watched the funeral... and saw people literally SCREAMING in the streets. It was just obscene the way some people were behaving in public. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it since. Don't get me wrong it was a devastating time and such a tragic event.

I also remember watching it back years later and feeling very sorry for the poor hearse driver who could barely see in front of him for the amount of full bouquets being lobbed directly at the window.

Of course it was a sad and tragic event, but the public hysteria around it was frankly disgraceful, and embarrassing.

I was 18 and thought the whole thing was absolutely completely nuts. I still think that.

Yes, I remember it - we even closed at work on the Saturday so people could watch the funeral. I had never liked Diana so didn't feel any more upset than I would at the untimely death of any stranger.

It was completely over the top & embarrassing to watch. Yes it was sad, it was tragic that she died but the mass hysteria was dreadful.

It seemed insane…I wonder if a sort of social contagion took people over.

In reality Diana appears to have been a desperately damaged person; I think a lot of people simplified her and made her into a kind of icon.

I was 10 and very annoyed that there was no TV for 3 days. And the caterwauling relatives. My mum did my head in. I was more annoyed when the same people in my family complained about "too much coverage" of our actual Queen's passing when it wasn't even slightly on the same magnitude as having only 5 channels and them all reading the same words off the screen in a permanent loop for 3 days.

I walked into school on the Tuesday and asked "has anyone NOT heard about Princess Diana" with a big eyeroll and got into massive trouble with our teacher. I just couldn't believe anyone was making such a big deal out of it.

It was very much one of those times when someone a bit mediocre got massively beatified in death. If she'd lived until 70 people would largely have forgotten about her, like they have Fergie.

I was 15. I don’t remember crying myself but I felt so very sorry for William and Harry. How they coped in that situation, everyone looking at them as they were going through such an awful time, I don’t know. I remember thinking people shouting out to them and throwing flowers at the funeral procession was so horrible and disrespectful.

It was disgraceful. Especially in front of two young children who had just lost their Mother

I was 27 and I do remember the public hysteria and some American clients giving us their condolences on Monday morning. I kept away from London for the following weeks. It was all very over the top

I worked 2 minutes from The Mall and didn't even go and look at the flowers. Most of my friends were indifferent to it, other than natural sympathy for her children.
Some people went massively OTT

Similar age and thought exactly the same. I felt 'oh that's sad' in the way I think that happening would be sad for any family, but I worked in central London at the time and walking past all bouquets outside Buckingham palace and seeing the wailing was surreal.

I was 16. I remember the tabloid headlines in the days before, she was vilified for her new relationship and then as soon as she died, she was martyred. Fucking ridiculous.

She was desperate for attention and had mental health issues which made her incredibly annoying. My mum (who would have been in her 50s) thought she was a twat as well, so it wasn't all older women who were 'upset'.

Do I remember rightly that there was a walkabout with William and Harry, to look at the flowers and speak to people?

What a thing to inflict on bereaved children.

I was only little so don't remember, but looking at the footage etc it does seem crazy, and it's hard to comprehend how it happened, how the public mood went that far.

I also found it in extremely poor taste last year when HRH died, that some newspapers published side-by-side comparison pictures of the number of flowers outside the Palace with the implication that death was a big popularity contest.

I think the tabloids were the ones responsible for the ridiculous frenzy so many people got themselves into at the time (and for years afterwards).

I remember it very well and when I see Trump supporters in a rally (especially the sort of person Trump wouldn't even acknowledge) then I'm always reminded of it again.

I think the tabloids are responsible for a lot of rubbish in the world to be fair. They stirred people up unnecessarily. As others have said it was so very sad and the obscenity of the boys having to follow her hearse unforgivable. Somebody should have put their foot down. Maybe the QOE.

I was in my 20s and had been out the night crash happened. I went to bed to the news that she’d been in a crash and woke up to the news that she died.

It was incredibly shocking.

I am the same age as Diana and I was sad for her boys being left without their mum in a pointless and very preventable accident but the public reaction was ridiculously over the top and heralded the start of all the public emotional incontinence we see so much of now 😡

I was 17, I wasn’t that interested tbh, I’d never been particularly interested in Princess Di, yes incredibly sad for someone so young to die and awful for her kids but I think the media blew it all out of proportion.

I don’t remember anyone in real life crying or carrying on, yeah it was all over the news but nobody in my family was crying about it.

I thought it was all very OTT. What really made me cross was the clamour for the Queen to come back to London, ‘to be with her people’ when she was actually doing the most important thing by staying at Balmoral to help her son look after the two boys who had just lost their mother. It was mind boggling that so many people thought their grief and their needs outweighed those of William and Harry.

I remember being shocked when I heard the news because it was so unexpected.
Then I felt sorry for her children because it's awful to lose your mum.

I wouldn't have thought any more about it after that but couldn't avoid the wall to wall coverage.
I didn't understand the public hysteria. None of my friends are royalists or interested in celebrity culture and we were all equally bewildered.

I was 12, so a similar age to you @StressedOutSemolina. I remember it being sad and me and my mum and dad and grandparents expressed that we thought it was sad that afternoon whilst sat in the garden. But, as you say, it was just that. Even at the time watching the funeral we were like "WTF?!" at the people calling other name as the coffin went past. Weird AF.

I was a bit bewildered by the hysteria. I was oncall that night, heard on the radio that she's been injured in a car crash in Paris, then managed to grab a few hours sleep before the morning ward round. My flat mates woke me up early wailing that she was dead, and I was pissed off that they cost me at least 1/2 hour sleep. They were pissed off that I hadn't woken them to tell them she'd been in a car crash. Mutual incomprehension.

I was abroad and was shocked to find out she'd died because I'd assumed she was heavily protected despite being divorced from the PoW. When I phoned home my parents told me the country had gone bonkers and there was nothing but news about Diana on TV.