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.

I think it's hard to understand without the remembering the context of the time. Everyone knew how unhappy she had been, many saw her as a wronged woman and Camilla & Charles as evil. The tabloid coverage of her in St Tropez gave the impression she was finally finding happiness, so it was a terrible shock for her to be wiped out overnight. There were so many gay men on those streets, who remembered her cuddling AIDS victims just a few years earlier, which was huge for wider awareness and acceptance.

The princes' experiences of the funeral must have been horrific though, with billions watching the tv coverage too. If the current Princess of Wales died tomorrow, there would likely be the same level of hysteria but I hope they wouldn't put George & his siblings through that after the lessons learned last time.

I remember that as Diana was turned into a saint there was bad feeling to the Rotal family. The Queen address to the nation should have put an end to it.

With massive hindsight I think one thing that might have stopped the princes being dragged down to London was the Spencer family saying they wanted them away from the public. They would have been in the throes of grief as well though.

I remember it well. Was 23. But I didn't get it back then.

I do now. But would find it hard to articulate why. I'm

I was on holiday in Paris and flew back to the U.K. Then boyfriend and I picked up the car from Heathrow and started driving home to near Sandringham and couldn’t tune into radio 1 as it was playing classical. Then they announced she was dead - stopped at a petrol station and they had newspaper of her and Dodi Fayed all over the forecourt and I remember saying to the guy - she’s dead- look at all these papers - at the time they were saying an accident in Paris I remember thinking how with all her security has she been in an accident.

I remember being stunned with grief. I was 22 she was an icon for me - I followed the engagement the wedding the children and then felt she stood up to the adulterous cheating bastard husband and the nasty monarchy and took them on. She was iconic.

I felt sick when people reported that the boys went to church and the vicar had asked to say prayers for Diana and was apparently told no - don’t mention anything (we lived near the estate in Norfolk and this is what locals said)

and yes I felt Charles had seen her up like a kipper. Virgin bride - wanted her sister first but her sister said no. She was ridiculously young and naive when she married him and totally in love with him - and he wasn’t with her. The marriage didn’t stand a chance but she went from uneducated nursery teacher with the right breeding to someone who stepped out with aids, land mines and so on and she was trying to do some good.

I remember quite well. I was staying at my parents' house with my children, and when the newspaper dropped through the letterbox my mum picked it up and shouted out the headline DODI DEAD DIANA INJURED, then switched on the television and wailed, "Oh, no, they're BOTH dead!"

We weren't a Royal Family sort of family, and DD1, then aged 6, was furious with me because this beautiful princess was dead and she hadn't known anything about her existence when she was alive.

Mass outpourings of grief, seas of flowers rotting in plastic outside public buildings, books of condolence in every building in the country, newspapers full of speculation and conspiracy theories.

I was 25 and had just moved to the UK and wondered what kind of crazy, hysterical culture I had come to live among.

I was 25 and had just had ds1.
I remember all the emotional stuff and all the theories of what happened. Didn't watch the funeral. To be honest, it's been 26 years and I'm still as bored by it now as I was then.
We did share a birthday though.

I was 13 and thought it was nuts too.

my aunt phone my mum and dad at the first sparrows fart and was utterly hysterical and distraught. I had no clue why we needed to know at that hour of the morning 🥴🥴🥴

I started jury service the day after. It was a weird time. It was a way over the top reaction and I should think that having to walk behind the coffin is partly at the root of Harry’s difficulties now.

My mum woke me up, in floods of tears, to tell me that she had died. When I shrugged she became angry and demanded I get up and watch the TV with her. I went back to sleep for another 4 hours. For the rest of the month she collected every newspaper front page. When my mum died a few years back all these yellow newspaper pages just made me laugh. She'd insisted they were important history. I think Diana dovetailed with alot (not all) women of a certain age. She was not very clever, mildly attractive, and married a prince.

I was late 20’s most people I knew thought the reaction by some was nuts. Many people weren’t really bothered but the press made it seem like everyone was. A lot of people at the time thought she was very attention seeking and had mental health issues.

I was about the same age but in the US, in a very rural town. I was at a house party and a friend of mine just arrived and he'd heard the news on his mom's car radio. I remember feeling so stunned and sad, everyone was. Everyone cried a little too. I think she affected the world and still remains a symbol of a woman's strength and courage. Even a bunch of kids out in the Texas countryside were deeply moved. I've always thought she was against the class system and wanted to either change it or escape it. Maybe it's all been romanticized, but so many of us related to her. Was there screaming in the streets when the queen died? I think obsession over the royals (or anyone, like celebrities) is really strange and unhealthy. Disgusting really. But she was different.

I was working in the US and everyone was a little surprised that I wasn't in paroxysms of grief about it! (I was very sad for her boys, of course, but it didn't really have any massive impact on me.)

Strange topic to bring up after all this time? Why did you do that OP? It's been discussed on Mumsnet hundreds of times over the years.

I imagine because it's the latest episode of the Crown?

I was 16 when it happened, and was pretty upset, mostly because my mother and grandmother were.

Now, I genuinely see it as the touchpoint for British society going to shit. We became emotionally incontinent babies.

Same. I had no connection to it at all. I remember being cross my mum woke me up to tell me because I was having a lie-in and had no idea why she thought it was important enough to wake me.

I was 26 at the time and had been on a night out. Woke up hungover. Saw the news. Never did get the hysteria over her dying. Yes it was sadut none of our business. If the film, the Queen was correct, I think the Queen did right by staying in Scotland. I don’t think they should have come down at all. I think it was a horrific thing to get William and Harry to walk behind the coffin. Awful thing to do to two young boys. No wonder Harry is fucked up. The public on funeral day were wailing and screaming at the coffin. It was the most odd behaviour.

Princess of Whales 😂

The outpouring of public grief was madness and embarrassing. It is strongly believed by people who live in and around Althorp Estate that she was cremated the night before the funeral procession and her ashes interred with her father in the village church. The cement around the Spencer columbarium in the church was fresh and damp the day of the funeral. The burial place on the island is thought to be a ploy.

It’s disgraceful looking back. And her poor sons who had to walk through the hysteria of people who didn’t know her, when they had lost their mother.

I remember it very well. I was waiting for the newspapers to be delivered and they were late, as it turns out because they were reprinted with the shocking news. I guessed right away who had died.

Princess Diana's fame and popularity was at its peak. Her photograph was in the paper every day. I remember that it was believed that Mohammed Al Fayed was tipping off the paparazzi as there had never been such relentless reporting on her daily activities when she was on holiday. He was drunk on the excitement of having a royal in his camp.

Buckingham Palace was surrounded by news crews from around the world which is a bit silly because it isn't where she lived.

I went to the funeral, as in stood in the street, and it was incredible. The footage you refer to of people screaming, I saw nothing like that. Just streets full of people quietly showing up for a woman who had literally been the face of the royal family for decades.

I still feel sick when I think of how her boys were forced to walk behind the hearse in front of millions of people. They were so young and had just had the worst news imaginable.

And people wonder why Prince Harry seems troubled...

I was in my early 20s. I was shocked by the manner of her death, and thought it sad, but some of my friends at the time were incredibly emotional about it, and I found it strange.
My parents were touring the US at the time, and for weeks whenever anyone heard their British accent they would offer their condolences. My Dad just kept saying it's OK, I didn't know her personally!

I was staying with friends for the weekend and I remember coming down to breakfast and being quite shocked by the news. I really didn't get the hysteria though and thought it was awful what William and Harry were put through.

I remember watching the funeral and thinking that people's reactions were totally over the top.

I watched a documentary the other day about her and they showed clips of people being interviewed in London who were crying and saying how much they loved her and how much she had done for them. These were just random people who hadn't even met her. I found the whole thing quite bizarre. Particularly when the tabloids were going to run some pretty uncomplimentary stories about her but had to pull them at the last moment. I also think Tony Blair shamelessly used her death to try and boost his popularity.

Mass hysteria whipped up by the media