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 remember feeling so surprised at the public reaction. I felt sorry for Diana and think she manipulated people to take some control over her life. After she died I realised that I didn’t like her very much and I didn’t say that to anyone. It was too opposed to what everyone else seemed to feel. Friends of mine travelled from Scotland to lay flowers. I just kept stum.

It was a collective public hysteria.

@App13

I was 17 and at someone's engagement when I heard , the girls there were crying and hanging each other ...

Now that's what I call an extreme reaction!

I was early 20s and was shocked when I saw a post saying she'd died. Mostly because it was so sudden and unexpected because she was so young.

I did watch the funeral on TV and thought the wailing, etc, was really inappropriate. These people didn't know her. I understand being sad for the general situation and her children, but it was over the top. I also felt really sorry for her poor children who had lost their mother and had to be paraded in public like that at such a time. It felt wrong to me. Then again, maybe it was important for them to have done that as part of their own grief, maybe they wanted to, I don't know. I hear mixed reports on that but it sounds like the family were looking out for them well, from what I've read.

It's always a horrible, tragic situation when someone dies young and leaves young children behind.

To be honest, it only really happened in the media for us. I didn't know anyone who reacted like that. We just carried on with ordinary life.

It was weird seeing it on telly. But it was only on telly. It was big news, of course! But nobody cried or did anything strange.

You clearly don't remember the shitshow of New Labour.

They really didn't. A small handful of weird conspiracy theorists thought that. Nobody sane thought it. Most sane people didn't really think about it at all.

It was bonkers and somehow assumed that everyone felt the same way.

Massive hypocrisy from the press. It irks me when people say how much everyone loved her.

Imagine trying to physically grab someone who literally doesn't even KNOW who you are. The fuck is wrong with people 🙈

I remember getting up early as it was summer, and found out via Ceefax - the pages were all in black and white instead of the usual colourful pixels. We were mourning my grandma that summer so watching a public funeral was actually very cathartic - I cried more then than at my grandma's funeral when I was forced to hold it together for everyone else.

What I don’t understand is how it was so many people - there really were lots of people crying and screaming as the hearse went past. But nobody ever says on these threads ‘I was one of those people’ and nobody I knew at the time cried or reacted very emotionally at all. So I’m left wondering who the hell those people were??

I don't think you can blame the tabloids, or anyone else for that matter, for the mass hysteria that was quite frankly rather bizarre.

I was sad she had died because she left behind 2 young boys, but I didn't cry or watch the funeral. Mind you I didn't do either of those with the queen either.

I was never a Diana fan, but I did feel sorry for her sons at the funeral. Two young boys had just lost their mum and were being paraded in front of the world.

Grief vultures making it all about them, we see it often in life and on here. They are some of the worst sorts of people.

They didn’t know Diana or love her, it was just all about them. No real thought for the children, if they did, they wouldn’t have behaved how they did. Terrible sick and attention seeking people.

I've often wondered if they were hired actors if I'm honest

Just to add - I found the burial cortege route and thousands of people along the flower-strewn motorways actually quite lovely, similar to the queen's funeral. At my grandma's funeral it was so hard looking out from the funeral car at people going about their business and the world carrying on without her. My grandad had died a few years earlier and bavj then, builders, people at bus stops, etc. used to stop and take off their hats.

We do ceremonial pomp and circumstance well in this country, its just a shame her sons were caught up in it.

It was really odd and so out of step with what had seemed to be public opinion, and UK attitudes to grief generally, that it almost felt manufactured. I didn't understand it then and still don't.

They've reverted back to British embarrassment and just don't admit it. Same with the arseholes people vote for in elections!

Yes I remember this happening.

It was just bonkers. I was 16. Radio one was playing weird trancy music. I think a lot of people's own grief for people they'd lost was projected onto Diana. Also it was just everywhere - you couldn't escape it. I remember crying at my Saturday job at Boots because the radio was playing another sad song and I just couldn't take anymore.

I remember Girl Guides cleared up the flowers outside the palace.

A family member was going nuts because they'd got onto the BBC journalism course but didn't start until the day after.

I was shocked but said she should have worn a seatbelt. Don’t go down well with my MiL……..

It made me think of Evita

"Oh what a Circus, Oh what a Show! Argentina has gone to town, over the death of an actress called Eva Peron"

The whole song sums up the behaviours at the time.

Why did you cry? See that to me is strange, you didn't know her

I was about 23/24 I had recently qualified as a nurse my mum woke me up.with the news whilst it was very sad for her family I didn't get the public hysteria but im not a royalist and was quite bemused about the public Grief when the Queen died too.

I agree with PP, I think a lot was because people were suspicious about whether it was an accident. There are far too many unanswered questions.

the radio station I listened to at the time basically played “kiss from a rose” on repeat. I still can’t listen to that song!!

You clearly don't remember the shitshow of the Tory government that preceded them, which was much like this one in that regard. New Labour achieved these 50 things:

1. Longest period of sustained low inflation since the 60s.
2. Low mortgage rates.
3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage and raised it to £5.52.
4. Over 14,000 more police in England and Wales.
5. Cut overall crime by 32 per cent.
6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools.
7. Young people achieving some of the best ever results at 14, 16, and 18.
8. Funding for every pupil in England has doubled.
9. Employment is at its highest level ever.
10. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest countries.
11. 85,000 more nurses.
12. 32,000 more doctors.
13. Brought back matrons to hospital wards.
14. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament.
15. Devolved power to the Welsh Assembly.
16. Dads now get paternity leave of 2 weeks for the first time.
17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice.
18. Gift aid was worth £828 million to charities last year.
19. Restored city-wide government to London.
20. Record number of students in higher education.
21. Child benefit up 26 per cent since 1997.
22. Delivered 2,200 Sure Start Children’s Centres.
23. Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
24. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & up to £300 for over-80s.
25. On course to exceed our Kyoto target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
26. Restored devolved government to Northern Ireland.
27. Over 36,000 more teachers in England and 274,000 more support staff and teaching assistants.
28. All full time workers now have a right to 24 days paid holiday.
29. A million pensioners lifted out of poverty.
30. 600,000 children lifted out of relative poverty.
31. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents.
32. Scrapped Section 28 and introduced Civil Partnerships.
33. Brought over 1 million social homes up to standard.
34. Inpatient waiting lists down by over half a million since 1997.
35. Banned fox hunting.
36. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since before the industrial revolution.
37. Free TV licences for over-75s.
38. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals.
39. Free breast cancer screening for all women aged between 50-70.
40. Free off peak local bus travel for over-60s.
41. New Deal – helped over 1.8 million people into work.
42. Over 3 million child trust funds have been started.
43. Free eye test for over 60s.
44. More than doubled the number of apprenticeships.
45. Free entry to national museums and galleries.
46. Overseas aid budget more than doubled.
47. Heart disease deaths down by 150,000 and cancer deaths down by 50,000.
48. Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent.
49. Free nursery places for every three and four-year-olds.
50. Free fruit for most four to six-year-olds at school.