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Original poster

To still not understand the Diana "thing"?

856 replies

TeaCake5 · 31/08/2017 08:22

As William and harry said they were bewildered by people who didn't even know her acting in the way they did. Yes it was sad that she was killed but to hand around kensington palace for days crying? Ridiculous.

OP posts:
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NormaSmuff · 31/08/2017 08:24

it was like a tsunami wave of grief - we succumbed to it. It couldnt be helped.
Now I wish the TV wasnt full of her. I am not a fan, never really was, but that week was just a week of grief from which there was no escape until after the funeral.
it was a phenomenon

DottyBlue2 · 31/08/2017 08:24

So why did you start a thread about it if you're that disengaged? HmmBiscuit

QuiteLikely5 · 31/08/2017 08:25

Why judge though? The nation felt a sense of closeness to her and empathised with her greatly after Charles had an affair - I suppose people felt they knew her?

She was an iconic, inspirational woman.

It was her children who I felt sorry for.

Bluntness100 · 31/08/2017 08:27

To be honest I didn't really understand it either. It was very sad, shocking and clearly tragic, but watching the images of people crying and wailing, I found quite surprising.

However for some reason whenever someone famous dies, you do see a certain amount of people doing this.

ItMustBeBedtimeSurely · 31/08/2017 08:27

I didn't, and don't, understand if either. I found the crowds crying in the street v distasteful.

NormaSmuff · 31/08/2017 08:28

I think people are embarrassed by it now

greendale17 · 31/08/2017 08:28

It was bizarre. I never understood it either

Original poster
TeaCake5 · 31/08/2017 08:29

It was also sickening Blair and his cronies using it as a political thing.

OP posts:
NormaSmuff · 31/08/2017 08:29

Even my DM who also was never a big fan, was going to go up to London, I must ask her about it, no doubt she will brush it off, I blame the media.

Crispsheets · 31/08/2017 08:31

"people's princess"
Horrible phrase.

MagdalenLaundry · 31/08/2017 08:31

I didn't understand it
I felt desperately sad for her children.
People convinced themselves they knew her but grief for an icon is kind of pleasurable. I was not convinced it was genuine
I thought half the country were nuts at the time

NormaSmuff · 31/08/2017 08:32

I feel sorry for William and Harry now, having to put up with media attention about it.

vanityallisvanity · 31/08/2017 08:33

Of course it's the media. Diana sells, and that's the only reason they bother. It makes me, for one, feel uncomfortable looking at that stuff because of the morbid fascination.

Marcipex · 31/08/2017 08:33

I didn't get it either.
Shocking news to wake up to, yes.
Very sorry for her boys and other family, yes.

But the wailing and screaming, the people who didn't know her personally trying to make it about them...I didn't get it then and I don't now.

TabbyMumz · 31/08/2017 08:34

It annoyed me at the time ...the BBC saying "the nation's grief" etc...it wasn't the nation's grief at all...sure there were a good few million in the streets at the funeral etc but the whole nation didn't feel like that at all...I and many other were looking at the crowds on TV thinking "what a load if lunatics".

EdmundCleverClogs · 31/08/2017 08:34

The nation felt a sense of closeness to her and empathised with her greatly after Charles had an affair - I suppose people felt they knew her?

Some did. Some didn't think anything of her. Some thought very little of her. Most forgot that to join into the national hysteria when she died. It was ridiculous, and quite frankly if she was still alive these days I believe she'd hardly be mentioned in the papers - the nation has an actual princess/future queen to creepily fawn over now.

The behaviour of the British public at the time was embarrassing and undignified, this whole 'twenty year anniversary' thing is not much better.

TabbyMumz · 31/08/2017 08:35

Yes I also hated the phrase "people's princess". We don't say "people's Queen" and she has done much more for this Country than Diana ever did.

Bluntness100 · 31/08/2017 08:36

The thing is I never did understand and still don't understand the whole "icon" thing. People like mother Theresa, Gandhi, sure, they are icons, but princess Diana worthy of reverence?, I find it a little bewildering. As said, very sad and tragic, but iconic, not for me, no.

liverbird10 · 31/08/2017 08:37

Personally, I found a lot of the wailing, howling, and rending of garments very false. I felt that strongly at the time - it was beyond surreal - and still do now.

I don't doubt many were genuinely very upset and of course it was tragic, but after the initial shock and sadness, much of the "national mourning" that followed seemed forced and fake to me.

CaptainMarvelDanvers · 31/08/2017 08:37

It was mass hysteria.

I think if she was alive today, people wouldn't be giving her a sainthood.

feeelingbad · 31/08/2017 08:38

I think all those people who didn't even know her, sobbing and wailing at the palace gates were fucking nuts.

She had two children genuinely grieving and suffering deeply aswell as the rest of her family. They didn't need to see that, they had their own grief to deal with.

Selfish buggers ranting that the queen 'do something' and 'talk to them'. She was looking after her grandsons!

Of course, be sad, be upset, shed a tear, but ffs don't wail like you were her child or close friend.

It was a very bizarre time.

sooperdooper · 31/08/2017 08:39

I thought it was ridiculous at the time and even more so now, very sad she died but people die every day

It just goes to show how history is written, in 100 years here's will only be the photos & reports of the 'nation grieving' and nothing will be remembered or written of the majority of people who carried on as normal

HappydaysArehere · 31/08/2017 08:40

A lovely young mother of two boys had died. She had unhappiness in her marriage and was trying to make the best of her life. She had been the subject of intense publicity for so long that people felt they knew her and they could certainly identify with the sense of the boys loss. It was that sense of understanding that swept through the country. People couldn't believe she had gone. It was similar to the Kennedy assiniation in the USA. The shock of that reverberated in this country and the memory of his children at the funeral with his little boy saluting stays with me even now. People wept for an association of feelings, their own loss of family; their empathy for the boys.

Ifailed · 31/08/2017 08:42

Have to agree with being bewildered then, and even more so now. A member of the aristocracy who lived the live of riley the "People's Princess"? Yes, she headed up some decent campaigns (AIDS, Mine-clearance), but there were an awful lot of normal people involved in these but they are irrelevant apparently. A cheating husband - MN is full of those. Her sons' lost their mother early, sad yes, but once again not that unusual.

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