To still not understand the Diana "thing"?

[TeaCake5]

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.

Living with such intense fame was very difficult.

She brought it on herself.

we live in a time now where sadness is pathologised as 'depression', where we no longer wear mourning clothes that signal we're bereaved and in grief, and where we're supposed to ping back to normal after the death of someone we love, probably while blogging about it, and Diana's death seems to have allowed people to vent private griefs there isn't an adequate public language for in this country....?
I agree with this absolutely.

But that was all part of Diana's legacy - she cheapened the monarchy and turned it into a celebrity sideshow, aided and abetted by the press. Her "accessibility" made people think they knew the royals, made them seem more human, just like us etc., and once that mystique went, so did the respect.

This is a really interesting take on it. I've heard the same opinion but from a different perspective - that she 'humanised' the royals as if it was unequivocally a good thing.

I was blindsided by her death....I'll never forget the instant lump in my throat and the shock....I'd never even noticed her much!

It was utterly devestating. I don't know why though.

The media coverage at the time was intense. I remember I had booked a weeks leave off from work with the intention of slobbing about watching daytime TV etc.
By the Wednesday I had to turn off the Tv, radio etc because it was all too, too much. It permiated every programme and most regular programmes/series were just taken off for "coverage"
The Manchester bombs/Grenfall Tower only had a tiny amount of coverage compared to the death of Diana.
The company I worked for at the time produced a crystal engraved small bowl (to celebrate her life) in which to float candle, we sold out and had to order more (they weren't cheap).
It was mass hysteria, very sad for her two sons, but unfortunately many children lose a much loved parent every day.

As for the marriage, they were both at fault, she was too young and he had not been allowed to marry who he wanted.

I remember hearing the news on my way home from a club; I was quite shocked & thought it was tragic considering she'd just got divorced and was starting a new life.
Ok her life was a bit chaotic but I've known quite a few newly divorced women who've had similar flings & affairs, then they settle down to a normal life.

I think the thing was she was in the news ALL the time for one reason or another before she died maybe that's why people felt so sad?

I don't remember watching all the funeral but I thought it was mean to make the boys walk behind the coffin, and it turns out not to have been their choice,

Fundamentally the marriage was an arranged one. They met a total of ten times before they married. She was 19 years old and married to Charles for one reason. To be a wife and provide an heir. She may have been too young to understand that, but I don't think she can have failed to understand when marrying the prince of wales, who you have met a handful of times, that it was not a love match and what her role was. Especially as she was titled and grew up in these circles. She must have known the score when you're asked to marry th prince of wales after meeting him two or three times.

Maybe she did not understand, but Charles was clearly under no illusions being so much older, and understood exactly what this was. I guess it was always doomed.

The good thing is, I think the younger royals now marry for love and I don't think the same arranged marriage thing will happen again.

And I think HM (Hilary Mantel, not Her Maj grin) is right to argue that to dismiss the reaction to Diana's death as 'mass hysteria' is a bit simplistic

I think that is her trying to justify and excuse the media's influence over the population at the time.

It was a really weird week that'll never be forgotten. Didn't understand the hysteria, still don't but, different things hit different people in different ways.
They only bit of that week, that left a sour taste was the press whipping up a frenzy about the flag flying st half mast & the public having a pop at the queen.
Still have my doubts about what actually happened & how but, whatever your viewpoint on Diana, two boys lost their Mum. So sad.

Apologies for the typos

My Grandad died a few days before she did, so it made losing him worse somehow. A man who almost died twice in WWII defending his country, nursed his increasingly sick wife for 20 years whilst also working and was already growing the tumour that killed him when he buried her.......no one lined he streets for him :(

My friend took a day off work and drove 150 miles to lay flowers, I never understood why. She never knew her or met her yet did that. I had forgotten that she had done it until she mentioned it on FB the other day.

She must have known the score when you're asked to marry the prince of wales after meeting him two or three times.

Her elder sister had been lined up for the job and turned it down so Diana can't have been totally unaware of what was going on. I think it was a case of "what first attracted you to your multi-millionaire, Heir-to-the-Throne husband?"

Definitely an arranged marriage. I recon the powers that be had their eye on the 'Spencer Girl' for years. Diana - quiet, healthy, well spoken, bit of breeding, no sordid history if you we get in quick. She first met C when she was 16 didn't she? At some party.

What a weird way to live. She was expected to let C have his mistress and keep quiet and smile and look good. It's the way it had been for generations in the aristocracy. It was the way things were done. She wouldn't do it though and rocked the boat and 'the firm' were not happy.

Boney, I'm not British, though I actually arrived in this country to live within a week of Diana's death, and one of the things that strikes me about this country is that it's very bad at dealing with death and bereavement. I find the 'mass hysteria' over Diana's death a lot less puzzling in the light of understanding this, now that I've regularly seen people avoid the newly bereaved, realised that funerals are much smaller, more private affairs than in my home country, and that there's a general impression that being bereaved, rather than being the thing that most unites us as human beings, is something embarrassing and awful that only happens to a tiny minority, and that no one really wants to think about.

I honestly remember being gobsmacked by threads on here when I joined Mn, at people who'd just lost a spouse or parent going back to work and having no one mention their loss, and I'm still taken aback by the numbers of people on Mn who think children will be damaged by witnessing adult grief at funerals.

I think the Diana stuff, which, absolutely, does seem so over the top, seems a lot more comprehensible when you think about it as a sort of temporary public 'permission' for collective grief, which didn't have a lot to do with Diana in the end, maybe, in a country which isn't that good at dealing with death.

I didn't understand it then. I was young at the time so I didn't really see the full impact or indeed it didn't have much of an impact on me. I find it strange now but then I'm not a Royalist, I can't understand the mindset of someone who would be hysterical for someone they have never met, the same way I can't understand why anyone would want to travel considerable distance to line up for days before a royal wedding just to see the car go past. The Royals don't give a toss about those people.

I feel sorry for the two boys losing their Mother so young but in the same way I feel sorry for my friend who lost her Mum aged 13.

I don't think there was a "mass hysteria". Yes, a couple of people wailed, a couple of people called out, but the majority of the people who gave two hoots were quietly just very shocked and saddened.
I think the phrase was an invention of the media, possibly more accurately reflecting the panic in Fleet St/Wapping that their golden goose had suddenly gone.

I think there a lot of 19 year olds would easily convince themselves of a fairytale situation when faced with marrying the heir to the throne. Especially 19 year olds with a bit of a rocky family background.

My DD3 is the same age as Diana when they got engaged. I'm not ashamed to say DD3 is still a child at heart and needs her families guidance a lot.

I can't get my head around the fact that next year William will be the same age as his mother when she died!

MoGhileMear

I think that you may be right in that there may have been some grief transference, but this doesn't excuse the way that the media was involved in all of this.

It is almost as if the media (after months/years) of taking one her or the royals side decided to prevent anyone from looking in their direction to see what part they played.

A close inspection of the papers and journalists at the time would have shown several (possibly more) suicides that were caused by continued journalistic harassment.

Her elder sister had been lined up for the job and turned it down so Diana can't have been totally unaware of what was going on

Yes, I understand rhe plan was it was to be Jane originally, but she declined the gig. Diana then accepted. They weren't even dating. I'd be gobsmacked if her sister, who she was very close to, never spoke to her or explained the implications of marrying in these circumstances, especially marrying the prince of wales who you were not in any way in a romantic relationship with and never had been.

The horriblest thing was when asked if they were in love, Diana played it correctly she lied and said yes, even though she was fully aware this was not the case and she had never even dated the man, she'd only met him a few times. He was at least more honest, but she publicly lambasted him for it later. 100 percent she knew this was a marriage of convenience. It's impossible to think that a man you've never been romantically involved with is in love with you and marrying you for that reason. The odds are overwhelming he never said to her he loved her either by the time they were asked th question..

keepingonrunning
I don't mean that everyone was obsessed by it, but that the large crowds, rolling coverage, memorial biscuit tins etc were very much creating this 'everyone is devesatated' narrative.

I can remember playing with a 'diana doll' at a friend's house. It wasn't a real doll, more a book that had a cardboard diana that you popped out and then on different pages there were different outfits with tabs on that you folded over to 'dress' diana in what I assume were her most famous outfits.
We knew she'd died but we had more fun dressing the doll up.
It's only in adulthood do I realise what a strange piece of memorabilia that was.

She must have known the score when you're asked to marry the prince of wales after meeting him two or three times
Diana said they dated 13 times, still frighteningly little. She had also socialised periodically with the royals all through her childhood.
I read that when she married she didn't want there to be any chance of divorce as her own parents' had been so painful for her. And at the time there was no precedent of an heir to the throne divorcing. Unfortunately I don't think anyone had spelt out to her that was because they felt entitled to have mistresses.

Diana was full of romantic ideas. I don't think she understood that people in her 'class' turned a blind eye to affairs so long as they were discreet. Even if she was aware, she was young and believed Charles was in love with her.
She didn't just accept the situation and had 'tantrums' in their eyes.
She did a lot to change the monarchy.
I remember being more shocked at the news of her death than I would have expected to be. I didn't cry or get hysterical like many did but I have to admit it shook me and I am not an overly emotional type.

It was totally surreal. A perfect example of mass hysteria.

They completely had an arranged marriage, exactly as we know them now. My parents had one. When they go bad, they go very bad indeed. There is no shared history of being in love at all. The whole Cinderella nonsense we feed girls results in this type of thing. Girls who think love can happen in this head in the clouds way.

It was her sister Sarah he dated.

In any case, I see her family as very complicit in lining her up for job - I don't believe they didn't know about Camilla either. Her sister Jane was married to a senior official in the Queen's administration too. From that angle, her brother's speech at the funeral was outrageous - too little, too late. I have often wondered if the story is true that she wanted to call it off but her family said: "Too late, your face is on the tea towels."