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.

What her brother said might have had some truth in it, and struck a nerve. BUT he was also part of that family that hadn't exactly treated her well either, and virtually sold her off to be a royal bride

To be fair, he was 16 when she got engaged, so I doubt he was the mastermind behind it.

I thought she was wealthy in her own right?

She was, but she still cost the taxpayers an enormous amount, especially for her security and travel.

She was 19 when she got engaged and turned 20 less than a month before she got married. The die was cast when she was a teenager. They put a teenage girl into the situation of marrying a man they all knew was in love with someone else and didn't really want to marry her. Morally that's very wrong.

She had a horrible childhood, there was domestic violence, she and her brother were used as pawns in a horrible divorce. It was no wonder she was fucked up. She seemed to be more sinned against than sinning.

She was desperately lonely and tortured, with no escape.

Well, surely the divorce was something of an escape? But there was an element of cake having/cake eating, what with still wanting to be 'the people's princess'.

What her brother said might have had some truth in it, and struck a nerve.

It was very true. She was notorious for freezing people out and dropping them for no reason. Mainly driven by paranoia. But in her situation I think paranoia is fairly understandable.

For goodness sake, the viciousness that comes out in relation to this women is amazing. There are people on here discussing her apparent mental health etc. She died 30 years ago ffs let her rest. I'm not a fan of that entire family that she married into and not bothered about her in particular but the vitriol towards her is weird. None of us new the woman, so I agree with OP that it's weird at the over emotional connection to her but equally weird the amount of nastiness towards her as well. A lot of it coming from other women. I hope now this anniversary is passed we will hear no more it's too much.

But it was an example of something she would do time and time again - ignore expert advice because she thought she knew better.

Like wearing a seatbelt in a moving vehicle, for example.

She was, but she still cost the taxpayers an enormous amount, especially for her security and travel I guess she will have to pay it back then

The Diana Phenomenon is nothing new.
People were the same when Kennedy was assassinated. People crying in the street, a sense of doom and gloom pervading most of America.
The whole 'Where were you when.....' scenario.
And apparantly he wasn't all that. He wasn't the saint that people make him out to be.
Sometimes, someone comes along who makes a huge impact and people, virtual strangers, feel they can relate to that person.

People like that have an impact/charisma.

No doubt people will be the same when the Queen dies.

Also totally didn't understand it. Her kids who'd just lost their mum kept a stiff upper lip while random adults who had never met her were roaring in the street on their knees.

For goodness sake, the viciousness that comes out in relation to this women is amazing.

It's funny how one person can be ridiculed and another person feted, for doing more or less the same thing.

Diana was ridiculed for her relationship with Dodi.
Queen Victoria has a friendship with Abdul and they make a fucking film of it!

derxa

Would you say all this stuff to William and Harry's faces - the two you profess to care about so much.

Yes I would, because I haven't said anything nasty about her.
and
I haven't professed anything of the sort.

You may want to show your loyalty with one of these

I remember it vividly. Watching the news first thing that morning. I;m not prone to public outbursts of emotion but my DH and I did both cry watching the news unfold. She was in her prime. We live on the route to Althorpe House and we went to line the route as the hearse went by to pay our respects.

Her kids who'd just lost their mum kept a stiff upper lip

That's what they had been brought up to do, their duty. Doesn't make them right.

Queen Victoria also had a friendship with Mr Brown, her groomsman, they made a film about that too!

I felt sad for William and Harry when she died as losing your mother is awful at any age,never mind at the tender ages of 12 and 15. But,I could not get my head around the outpourings of grief from people that didn't know her! I mean,really? Standing outside Kensington Palace,weeping and wailing about someone you'd never even met? It seems a really strange way to behave to me.

mchomo
I only mentioned she cost the taxpayers a lot because someone said she was wealthy in her own right, implying that she didn't cost us anything. No need for sarcasm. Charles and Camillas travel and security costs are enormous too. We the taxpayer have to foot the bill.

While all the Royals are human beings and therefore a mix of good, bad and indifferent, the Royal Family as an institution is basically a bunch of irrelevant parasites. I have no truck with any of the dumbfuck conspiracy theories about Di and Dodi having been murdered, but the accident was certainly quite useful to certain people (Not the Royal Family, who were content to let her make an increasingly annoying-to-the-public arse of herself by then). Blair, whose touchy-feely 'modern' man-of-the-people act (which always made my skin crawl) got to take centre stage and he revelled in it. The tabloids (perhaps partly due to the wierd spin about 'paparazzi' being to blame) got to steer the sheep in several different directions at once, which was going to provide useful evidence of just how far 'the public' can be manipulated and pushed.
What I remember, most of all, is profound unease, that week, at such a demonstration of the unthinking sentimentality of many people, and how dangerous that is. It dwindled fairly quickly, and though there have been periodic upsurges since, nothing quite as worrying happened for, well, nearly 20 years.

In terms of looking around at both the media and the people you know, and passers by, and thinking what the fuck is wrong with you morons... well, it was a bit like the morning of June 24th last year.

Would you say all this stuff to William and Harry's faces - the two you profess to care about so much.

Well, no, but that's completely irrelevant. There are plenty of public figures who attract vilification but you wouldn't slag them off to their children. If I met Trump's children, for instance, I doubt I would tell them that their dad's an incompetent, bigoted, lying arsehole, but I don't see why that should prevent me saying it elsewhere. Likewise I probably wouldn't tell Cameron's children that their father was the second worst Prime Minister in recent history who sold his country down the river.

The fact of the matter is that if you choose to make yourself and your affairs public for your own personal gain, then this goes with the territory. And let's face it, Diana was very anxious to keep herself in the public eye.

People were the same when Kennedy was assassinated.

No, I don't think it was the same. I was 16 when Kennedy was assassinated and also living close to Washington. There was definitely deep grief and people were crying, but I think it was different. Admittedly I was watching the coverage of Diana's death from the US, so not in the UK, but it seemed very self-indulgent and "what about Meeee?" with all the "your people are grieving, ma'am-bring yourself and your grieving grandsons to London" malarkey.

I think that in the US with Kennedy's death, while we were stunned and grieving over what was a national tragedy, there was very little of this "it's all about me" business that seemed (at least from afar) to be pervading the UK display of grief. What I do remember is the deep sympathy for the family, especially for Jackie, who had experienced a truly horrific loss. I think people would have felt it a bit unseemly to overindulge in their own grief in the face of what she had experienced.

She was trapped in a miserable marriage, with a v unsympathetic and distant 'blood family' of her own, and hounded by paparazzi to an extent that would drive most people literally mad.

She wasn't trapped in the marriage, she was divorced. And she chose to court the press in a big way when it suited her.

Yes the collective hysteria was bonkers, but to say she knew what she was doing, that her affairs match Charles' cold and determined cheating, and that she was lucky because she was rich and could go on holidays? How could anyone really believe that stuff?

When she chose to target married men, I would say that absolutely her affairs matched what Charles did. Arguably they were worse, inasmuch as she caused pain to a number of women and children who had never done anything to harm her.

She was desperately lonely and tortured, with no escape.

But she had escaped.

Like many others on here while I was sad as I would be at the premature death of anyone, I couldn't believe the hysteria at the time.

I remember being amazed how the country seemed to grind to a complete halt for days and talk about nothing else - naive looking back now I guess. But I just remember being really cross that some series that I loved (so much, I have no idea now what it was!) was cancelled on the Sunday night. And then all the sad music for days on the radio. I worked for a radio station at the time and I seem to remember having to analyse what we could and couldn't play.

I was studying OU at the time and was due to have a tutorial on the day of the funeral and our tutor asked whether we wanted to move it. We all looked at him puzzled and said "why would we"? Genuinely none of us thought that we would consider changing our plans for the day.

There was a letter in the Guardian at the time which summed up my own feelings - it said something like "the TV news just said they would be updating us on the news of Diana's death. She is dead, there is no update, she continues to be dead." Harsh I know but just how I felt.

So, no I didn't get it then, even less so now.

Have just watched the Diana 7 days programme, which I thought might explain the collective grief. Which was huge. i think people just wanted an outlet, and it was a long time between her death, the sunday, and her funeral, on saturday.
the press were just overdosing on it.