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.

Gottagetmoving, "full of romantic ideas" is a charitable interpretation. Diana wasn't one to take advice. I remember her hairdresser for the wedding (so when she was still the "innocent ingenue") saying that her coiffure went floppy because she wouldn't take his advice, she knew better.
I also remember her grandmother saying that she almost contacted Buck House before the wedding to tell them to call it off because she knew that Diana would be a disaster. (Hah! just seen OVienna's post)

It was sad that a young woman lost her life, and very sad for her sons. She made the wrong choice of husband, lots of people do that. She made the most of the situation and got the attention she craved. I was so tired of seeing her face everywhere, magazines, newspapers, TV and still it goes on.

It puzzled me how the herd of sheep became so huge, nothing else in their lives to latch on to, a need to cry but no reason to? And even now we are still bombarded with pictures of her.

I watched the funeral cars pass the end of my road because I lived where they passed and it was a historical moment. Aside from which I couldn't get out of the house because of the crowds. It was with relief that it was over, but it is still going on, the story being printed again and again.

People die tragically, a lot, some of them are good people, they don't get all the fuss. She did good things because - why? No need to work, a need to be seen? Who knows.

It is over, let it go.

I've heard that story too Purits. I wonder if its true?

If so - charming lot, hey? You can see why she ended up nuts.

She did so many little acts of kindness for other people that were not publicised until she died. Letters she wrote, gifts she sent, visits she made. She was flawed like all of us but these acts will live with the people she was kind to. Kindness is vastly underrated now. I honestly don't understand the vitriol here.

purits
So she was a woman with her own opinions. Whatever next.

dexra So do lots of people. Jeremy Beadle raised something in the order of £100 million during his lifetime for various charities. Didn't see people crying buckets and lining the streets at his funeral.

And by many accounts her maternal grandmother was not an entirely benign person.

I hated it, my mum died exactly a week before. It was like I couldn't grieve in peace because the whole country was at it.

Hard to explain but when you're devastated and all over the media there are people crying over someone they've never met.

At the time it made me really angry (I was also at the anger stage of my own bereavement so that might have been why).

This 20 year anniversary has been pretty hard because there have been so many reminders of it.

Ok so the flowers and wailing were OTT but to me she was an absolute superstar. She was iconic in that she was a representative of that time.

Every time we discuss the death of a famous person we get the : Oh you didn't know them. It's a bit snore bore. Maybe there isn't a rational reason why but what the upset people feels is real to them.

People who weren't upset when she died probably didn't like her much. People who were upset probably did. Shrug.

So she was a woman with her own opinions. Whatever next.

There is a difference between having well-thought-out views and being too pig-headed to listen to others.
She was well-known for having "opinions", she was always falling out with friends.

I agree with lots of comments on here. Diana should never have married Charles. She was too young and innocent to say no and doesn't every little girl dream of being a princess? Both families should take equal blame and Charles was old enough but didn't have the guts to say no.

Her death seemed to cause a seismic shift in a lot of people in this country and not for good. I know people may joke about the old British stiff upper lip but in so many ways that translated to the guts and determination that probably helped us survive two world wars. Now it seems to have been replaced with unnecessary, OTT outpourings of emotions about things that would have been viewed differently in the past and quite frankly if there's ever a WWIII I think we are fucked.

I was a child when she died, about 11, and remember it all clearly.

I don't understand the huge outpouring of grief personally, however from older people I know and watching many docus ect, it does seem that she touched many many people, through her charitable work, her apparent empathy for others, her work on landmines and with HIV sufferers, as well as the fall out of the affair with Charles and the apparent snubbing of her by the Royals, all combined to make her someone very much adored by the wider public.

I found it ridiculous. On the day of her funeral I was heading to a friend's wedding and called in at my local shop for something (clearly, all dressed up and going somewhere special).

When the woman behind the counter heard I was on my way to a friend's wedding - which had been planned for about a year and had people coming from miles away to attend - she was incredibly shocked and said, 'Are they not cancelling it? It's Diana's funeral today'. My reaction was, 'Are you fucking insane? Who the hell would cancel their wedding day to watch the funeral of a woman they never met on the telly?'

Bonkers!

Maybe it was the first time that many cultures had been 'allowed' to express grief so loudly. It wasn't embarrassing at the time

It certainly was embarrassing. And if loud grieving isn't your cultural thing, why latch on to it because a celebrity princess has died? A tiny proportion of that family's "subjects" turned out to cry/wail/throw flowers - do any of you believe the royals give a flying fuck whether you were there to "share their grief"? The same wailers who blamed her death on "hounding by the press" gawped as two young boys were paraded around so "the people" could look at them, take photos and so on.

You might have been surrounded by people who thought it was some lovely warm expression of adoration. I was surrounded by people who thought it tasteless and delusional behaviour. I feel the same as I did then; it was the start of the celebrity culture, I guess.

Diana said they dated 13 times, still frighteningly little

Agree. I think her using the term "dated" is stretching it, a quick Google says she said they "dated", or met, exactly 12 times before they walked up the aisle and fatefully said "I do" . It was her sister he more briefly dated.

Arranged marriages are not uncommon across the world, and they are particularly the norm in royal circles, and that's exactly what this was and I don't see how she couldn't have known it if I'm honest, however much she didn't want to portray that to the media.

I think if she had done so and explained she'd willingly accepted an arranged marriage that her sister had declined, it would have lost her a lot of sympathy.

I hated it, my mum died exactly a week before. It was like I couldn't grieve in peace because the whole country was at it

Hard to explain but when you're devastated and all over the media there are people crying over someone they've never met
At the time it made me really angry

I think we can safely assume that's how the two boys felt as well.

I'm so sorry you lost your mum

The diana obsessives who come out with all the "press killed her" were the same people reading and looking at pictures of her and always wanting more! And as someone said doing to the same to William and harry during the funeral.

I like to think if she'd been alive that odious wanksplat media whore Burrell would have been sacked and living life in obscurity just as he should be.

I got fed up of the use of the words "modernity" and "normalcy" that week by royal correspondents.

Bless Friends of mine also got married on the day of the funeral. I remember being in the pub during the preceding week and someone actually saying "are they postponing the wedding?" I was gobsmacked.

Incidentally a close friend of mine and several other people at the wedding worked in the Royal Household. Everyone agreed it was tragic for the boys but even these people who had known Diana through the course of their work (some liked her, some loathed her) weren't grief stricken.

I will never understand the hysteria and frankly I believe that if Diana had been a plain girl neither it or the adulation of her would have happened.

Why are people citing Mother Theresa as an icon? By most accounts she was actually very cruel in her treatment of poor, sick people.

I like to think if she'd been alive that odious wanksplat media whore Burrell would have been sacked and living life in obscurity just as he should be.

Just after the funeral, my friend who worked at the Palace told me "we were all taking bets as to when she would finally sack him" . He was on his way out, no question.

She was nice and clearly did lots of good deeds.

But no good came out of everyone suddenly being in touch with their feelings.
I prefer a stiff upper lip and to go back to a time when we didn't all bloody cry about everything.

Cheers Louise

Rock, my arse.

Am I the only one who thinks it weird she went out with (never mind married) her sister's ex boyfriend?

Rock, my arse.

Exactly what my friend said at the time!