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.

Absolutely ridiculous. Yes, very sad a young mother died, but the weeping and wailing was beyond parody. And don’t even get me started on the disgrace of the media insisting the family and those two poor boys came out to perform for the crowd. Disgusting.

I think something similar is happening around lockdown - so many people now coming out against it and talking about the harms.

Guaranteed that these are some of the same people who were clapping for the NHS, snitching on their neighbours and desperate to extend restrictions.

I suspect the same embarrassment we feel about August 1997 will be felt about 2020-21 in years to come.

I was in my 20s and also thought the hysteria was ridiculous and probably really unhelpful for the family who should have been left in peace at Balmoral instead of returning to London at the behest of Blair.

Some very harsh and frankly ridiculous comments on here. It was a terrible and shocking tragedy- one of the most famous women in the world dying at a terribly young age and leaving 2 small boys without a mother. Of course people were upset. I was only 16 then and thought it was so sad and I still do now. There was huge outpouring of grief because people loved her, whether they knew her or not. We will never see such an event again because there will never be anyone like her again. Some people are commenting on this with hindsight. The fact is at the time, Diana was loved by the world and most people had a very low opinion of Charles.

I’m a republican so would have expected myself to be unmoved. However, I wasn’t unmoved. I was upset by a life cut short and very sad for the boys. I didn’t wail in public but I felt unsettled for a few days which surprised me because I had no interest in royals and no love for the institution. A few years later, I wasn’t bothered about the QM death and I wasn’t bothered about the Queen dying last year. So I suppose for me, it was about Diana’s youth and the fact she had minor children.

I was the same age, and felt the same.

She had been absolutely savaged in the press over the preceding few months, and then all of a sudden she was Saint Diana, Princess Of All Our Hearts. Made me want to spew it was so hypocritical.

The people screaming and crying in the street were a great example of how the media can instantly whip up mass hysteria from nothing - it put me in mind of the Nuremberg rallies or 1984, quite frankly.

I was actually pissed off on the day she died as the Liverpool vs Newcastle game was called off as a result.

Thinking more on her fame and omnipresence that I mentioned, I don't think there has ever been a person in history who generated more publicity and media attention during their lifetime than Diana. In 100 years time I doubt she will be much more than a footnote in history ("oh that woman who was the mother of William, the future king, and died in a crash")..she won't imo be a major historical figure, certainly not Anne Boleyn level...but while she was alive I cant think of another individual ever who dominated the spotlight, the public consciousness, more. In other words she defined an era and was very much of her time (kinda similar to the Spice Girls). Then there are the Van Gogh's of this world who had very little fame during their lifetime, yet immense fame much later.

For those who didn't live through the Diana years and the media frenzy that surrounded her, its impossible for them to fathom that level of fame because as I touched on nothing like that can ever happen again due to the much broader and fractured media today. The scrutiny on her every move was 24/7 365 days a year. Journos have openly stated they made their entire living through her. She was their breadwinner. No person in history would have heard the snap of a camera more.

With that unparalled level of focus on her and the immense status she had in the public sphere it's no wonder mass hysteria ensued when she died.

There was huge outpouring of grief because people loved her, whether they knew her or not.

They didn’t. It’s an insult to her children and anyone that genuinely loved her, that people performance grieved and made it about themselves. Fucking weirdos.

My mum had a couple of work colleagues who completely lost their minds over it. One went off sick with stress for six months as a result. Those people were very real I’m afraid.

In retrospect I think it was similar to when John Lennon was shot dead and all his records got into the charts in December and January. The death seemed to represent something larger than it was - in his case you could say he was a 'man of peace' shot down, his level of fame was about the same as Diana's and you could say he had been on the world scene about the same length of time, about 16 years. Plus, Lennon was making a comeback so was currently in the news again, he had a new single in the Top 10 and a new album out. Not equating it but...

Diana died in the summer silly season when Parliament was in recess and the papers are hungry for whipping up all kinds of news, reason sort of slips its moorings. I think the Royal Family were caught out a bit - the tide of the media had been turning against Diana then all this turned it back in her favour, albeit posthumously. I do think the Queen was a bit off - didn't even make a public comment about it until forced to. Wasn't she the one who nixed Diana's security after the divorce? It all got a bit petty. But Diana had a kind of romance thing going on with the press, she photographed well and made the other royals look stuffy, it was almost a return to that CoE vs Catholic thing in its flavour. A one-upmanship game was under way.

After years of the boring slightly jaded and corrupt looking Tories, Blair and New Labour, and Euro 96 was a breathe of fresh air and it allowed the public to vent a bit and let its emotions go for the first time in many many years. But for weeks it was like there was only one reaction to have and it had topspin, it fed on itself. People came to London to deliver flowers, then others came because they'd seen it on the news, then others came to watch the spectacle of it because it was history and it was FOMO. Conspiracy theories kept the news on many of the front pages for literally years after, albeit only the Daily Express latterly.

Whaaaaaaat?! That's utter fucking madness

I think it was the shock tbh - she was the most famous person in the world and things like that weren't supposed to happen to people like her. As a pp said, if even she wasn't immune to dying in such a way, the rest of us were very precarious. I think it made us all feel vulnerable!

It didn't help that all the radio stations played miserable music for about 3 days solid and the wall to wall coverage on tv, at a time when we didn't have internet or streaming services so no other option than to participate in it all.

This was coupled with the sense that she'd been screwed over by the RF - Britain perceived an unfairness that magnified feelings.

My mum had a couple of work colleagues who completely lost their minds over it. One went off sick with stress for six months as a result. Those people were very real I’m afraid.

Stress. 🙄 Fancied 6 months off more like and used a strangers death to get it. Sick fucker.

And if she’d have just been wearing a seat belt, she’d still be all over the media even now.

As so many others have said, we seem to be dictated to more and more by the media how we should be thinking and behaving. Diana’s death started it; if you weren’t on board in the obscene outpouring of grief, you were called callous and uncaring by others.
The same with Covid. The media drove the narrative, people jumped on board and if you didn’t go along with it you were again accused again of being uncaring and selfishness.

History is littered with examples of sociogenic illness where masses lose all sense of reason and logic.

I remember the Blair government very well. I’m exactly the same age as him and it was the best decade of my life - we had public services and a society that worked.

I was one of those people. I just don't jump on the echo bandwagon of posters saying how they really didn't care, and were not in the least affected.

I don’t remember any screaming. There was a lot of crying but the hysteria described here seems to have eluded me despite watching the funeral from start to finish.

Many people have made valid points about the tabloids whipping up the hysteria. Looking back, that period when the internet was just used by a few geeks & before social media existed was probably the peak of the tabloids’ power & influence. They really did set the news agenda, and the Sun claimed the credit for winning the 92 General election for John Major’s Tories.
The Sun was selling 4m+ copies a day, the Mail & the Mirror 2.5m+ and the NOTW 5m. Blair, who had only been PM for a couple of months, had Alastair Campbell a former senior tabloid journalist as his right-hand man. Eventually, of course, even the Queen herself was forced to dance to their tune : ‘Your People are Hurting, Ma’am!”

The Queen was well aware by the time she left Scotland that the monarchy was hanging by a thread at that point. It was the most unpopular I’ve ever seen it.

My recollection of the Blair years is that public services were a shambles, NHS waiting lists were monstrous, and in the rush to get 50% of young people onto university courses, degrees became largely worthless and students began to pay tuition fees. Or, rather, their parents did - which was yet another burden on the "squeezed middle". Oh, and then there was the small matter of the Iraq war. But Blair mastered the art of the quivering lip, so people thought he Cared.

It was a complete disaster of a decade.

There was huge outpouring of grief because people loved her, whether they knew her or not

This is complete bollocks. There was an outpouring of mass hysteria. Remember that the vast majority of the population are not very bright. The thicker you are, the more likely you are to buy into being told how to think and feel.

I was overdue with DD2 and had her between the death and the funeral.
I sobbed buckets but in hindsight I think that was hormones.
With 26 years distance I think it's fair to say that the entire country lost their minds for a week or 2.

Your memory is very faulty. Waiting lists were a fraction of the levels of the last decade and the Iraq war would have happened whichever party had been in power.

https://www.standard.co.uk/hp/front/howard-under-fire-over-iraq-7247839.html

It was my 13th birthday and I was (selfishly I'm ashamed to say) annoyed that everyone seemed more fused about Diana's death than the very important event that was me becoming a teenager.
My Grandparents came round and after a quick "Happy birthday Imnot, here's your present" they engrosed themselves in the news.

Then every year for about 5 years it was "oh I can't believe it's been x years since Diana died". That did stop, other than on 10th, 20th anniversary etc.

Other than that I was torn between "what's all the fuss, we didn't know her" and being caught up in the whole grief/people's princess/ life will never be the same etc. And writing some truly wanky prayers/poems for her. Other than that I was feeling very very sorry for William (my future husband) and Harry. I couldn't imagine life without my mum. Still can't tbh.

I look back now and I'm actually ashamed of how self centred I was.

I cried watching the crown. I'm the same age as Harry, I can't imagine not having my mum. I'm not much older than Diana was when she died, and had my DC at similar ages to her. I can't imagine not being with them.

I was 20 and it was the most boring day of my life. Every TV CHANNEL and radio station were all about Diana. I had a massive hangover from clubbing the night before but nowt to watch on TV while I nursed my aching body.

Of course I was sad that two little boys lost their mum, but I wasn't personally impacted by Diana's death.