Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

Public reaction when Princess Diana died

239 replies

StressedOutSemolina · 10/12/2023 19:00

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.

OP posts:
ButterCupPie · 10/12/2023 20:06

Topseyt123 · 10/12/2023 19:03

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

I was 19 and I remember getting up on the Sunday morning and putting Radio 4 on. It was the kind of usual church service they had every Sunday. The vicar spoke and said 'Dear Lord, we remember Princess Diana, killed in a car accident'. For a moment I thought it was some kind of satirical joke and turned on the TV.

I felt more or less the same way I felt about other famous people that I didn't know, that is, not very much.

I had a summer job and went into work the next day and of course everyone was talking about it. One lovely girl I was pally with said, loudly, 'when I turned the radio on and heard the solemn music, I thought the Queen Mum had carked it'. Cue much tutting from some people, laughter from others.

I was horrified and disgusted at the weird 'grief stricken nation' rubbish that people were spouting on about.

cardibach · 10/12/2023 20:07

a woman who had literally been the face of the royal family for decades
Eh @PepperIsHere ? It was less than 20 years from engagement to death. She was out of the spotlight for chunks of that.

Silvers11 · 10/12/2023 20:08

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 10/12/2023 19:19

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.

Totally Agree with this ^

PepperIsHere · 10/12/2023 20:11

cardibach · 10/12/2023 20:07

a woman who had literally been the face of the royal family for decades
Eh @PepperIsHere ? It was less than 20 years from engagement to death. She was out of the spotlight for chunks of that.

Eh yourself. It was 2 decades and she was never out of the spotlight. As a reporter I can testify to this. No-one else's fame has even approached hers.

reesewithoutaspoon · 10/12/2023 20:12

I remember being woken up by my son telling me Princess Diana had died and my first thought was Oh FFS that's all that we will hear about for the next few weeks. I was never a fan and she was always all over every newspaper as it was.

But the funeral was crazy. I was horrified at people lobbing flowers at the hearse. and clapping. It was a funeral FFS, not the lord mayors parade. It felt disrespectful. I was brought up that you stopped and bowed your head when a funeral car passed out of respect. This was just bonkers.

DilemmaDelilah · 10/12/2023 20:15

I was desperately sad, mainly because we were around the same age and our second children were the same age. However screaming and wailing in public over somebody you don't even know is completely unnecessary.

SkyFullofStars1975 · 10/12/2023 20:16

I never bought the island burial thing ever, and only hope that she was buried with some dignity in the family vault next to her father.

lljkk · 10/12/2023 20:16

I kind of liked the big reaction. It was lots of spontaneous grassroots emotion, expression. I didn't know the British could be so emotionally, publicly especially. We all felt like someone we knew had died, and so suddenly. I suppose is why there was such a widespread reaction.

MargaritaThyme · 10/12/2023 20:17

Diana’s death, and the manner of it, was a massive shock. I happened to be awake that night as the news broke, and there was a real sense of disbelief and concern for her children.

What followed over the next two weeks was an outbreak of mass hysteria which I have never seen before or since. The internet hadn’t gone mainstream back then, and there were no smartphones or social media, but the TV & newspaper reaction was on a similar scale to the Queen’s death.

While public reaction to the Queen was generally dignified, restrained & respectful, because she was a very elderly lady and her death wasn’t a complete shock, so many people completely lost their minds over Diana. It was a very weird and very unsettling thing to witness. I hope I never see such madness again in my country.

upinaballoon · 10/12/2023 20:17

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 10/12/2023 19:19

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.

Yes, yes and yes. Someone, sometime, on a Mumsnet thread, suggested that the newspapers put pressure on the Queen partly to deflect from themselves.

SgtJuneAckland · 10/12/2023 20:18

I was around the same age, I was on holiday abroad for the first time, it was reported initially there she'd been shot! We said oh that's shocking, I remember my mum saying her poor boys, then we went to the beach. By the time we got back a fortnight later it had largely died down.

furtivetussling · 10/12/2023 20:19

I remember being quite shocked when I heard the news on the radio, but only in the same way as you would about the sudden death of any other world famous person.

Tilllly · 10/12/2023 20:20

I was late 20s and terribly shocked
I remember crying when the news showed the car

I think the public hysteria was over the top
I think HM did the right thing by those boys and the media whipped up "public indignation"

It was and is, a sad and shocking event. She made some foolish choices but I liked her
And ultimately she was a young mum

floofbag · 10/12/2023 20:22

I was around 19 and couldn't give a shit if she died ( obvs with hindsight I see she was a mother and a young woman and it's sad )
Where I worked they played Elton's song on a loop and told me to be sad and people were taking time off sick because they were upset . I thought they were all mad .

Greydog · 10/12/2023 20:22

We took bets at work on how long it would be before people rang us to say they were too distressed to go out of the house to pay their outstanding bills. We got one early on, who told us they had heard dreadful news, and were too upset to leave the house. Being sympathetic colleague asked if it was some one close they'd lost - "oh, yes Princess Diana" - "did you know her well?" the reply "Never met her but she seemed nice" - and that just summed up the total stupdity of the diana worship. Put me in mind of the song from Evita - Oh what a circus

MadeOfAllWork · 10/12/2023 20:22

I think it suddenly reminded people of their mortality. Here was a woman that we had seen going from a young bride to a mother and then throwing that all off and having flings. She was not unlike Shirley Valentine in a way.
Then suddenly and without warning this beautiful woman who had all the money and lived a glamorous lifestyle was suddenly snuffed out. And if it could happen to someone like her in an instant then it could be any one of us.

GirrlCrush · 10/12/2023 20:23

I think most people felt ( and many still do) that she had been murdered

DappledThings · 10/12/2023 20:24

GirrlCrush · 10/12/2023 20:23

I think most people felt ( and many still do) that she had been murdered

Most? No way. It was never anything other than a fringe opinion.

Marleymoo42 · 10/12/2023 20:27

My friends mum took all her kids to London to 'be a part of history'. My parents thought she was crazy and said they found the public histeria very worrying. Even as children we found it odd.

I remember the day she died really clearly. My dad was working at a local BBC station and was woken up in the night to go in. All the senior staff were on holiday so he had to step up. My mum was away so he had to wake me to tell me what was going on. I always felt like I was one of the first to know the news. The Crown has confirmed that this was not the case!

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 10/12/2023 20:28

MadeOfAllWork · 10/12/2023 20:22

I think it suddenly reminded people of their mortality. Here was a woman that we had seen going from a young bride to a mother and then throwing that all off and having flings. She was not unlike Shirley Valentine in a way.
Then suddenly and without warning this beautiful woman who had all the money and lived a glamorous lifestyle was suddenly snuffed out. And if it could happen to someone like her in an instant then it could be any one of us.

I read an article some time afterwards that said people were in shock because she was young, beautiful, rich and millions loved her. People like that aren't supposed to die, let alone in the way she did.

Avacardo2023 · 10/12/2023 20:28

I was on holiday in Malta for her death and the funeral and it was all a bit surreal. There was just the TV then and nobody had smartphones so everyone thought it was a wind up at first. I remember the Maltese people being very upset about it and everyone was in pubs watching the funeral.

Tilllly · 10/12/2023 20:29

GirrlCrush · 10/12/2023 20:23

I think most people felt ( and many still do) that she had been murdered

I don't

Horrible unnecessary accident

cardibach · 10/12/2023 20:29

PepperIsHere · 10/12/2023 20:11

Eh yourself. It was 2 decades and she was never out of the spotlight. As a reporter I can testify to this. No-one else's fame has even approached hers.

Show quote history

Less than two decades. So not decades then.
Plus she couldn’t remotely be called the face of the royal family for many (any?) of them, and wasn’t even a member of it before the marriage. Her fame is a different issue - yes, it was huge. That’s not what you said though.

BeReet · 10/12/2023 20:32

I was 23, and the night she died, me and my now husband had flown out on a late flight on holiday to Greece. When we finally surfaced, the tv was reporting her death.

We flew back to the uk the day after the funeral and were very grateful to have missed the entire circus. A large swathe of the British public entirely lost their minds, and it was very weird to view from a distance.

clary · 10/12/2023 20:33

I worked on a newspaper and we had this as the front-page story for the whole week.

I must admit I felt a massive disconnect at that time. It was sad for her children and the rest of her family but it had no impact on me personally. I was sadder when Bowie died as it meant no more output from him.

But the reaction from people, the flowers - the waste of money my goodness. I was baffled.

I am soooo not a royalist AT ALL but I do agree (and I thought this then) that making William and especially Harry walk behind the coffin was truly horrific.