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.

And Trevor Rees Jones wrote a book, The Bodyguard's Story.

I hate the mass littering that has to be cleared up at the tax payers expense as well.

That's terribly nice of you but there really is no need. I live a mile from Buckingham Palace in Westminster and our council tax bill is the second lowest in England despite there being a massive headache with rubbish disposal. It's caused mostly by residents but also the millions of visitors we get.

What conscientious people like you probably don't realise is that putting rubbish in a pavement bin or throwing it on the pavement costs the same in terms of clean up to the local authority and therefore ultimately me.

So next time please just dump your popcorn in the cinema in Leicester Square and then the Odeon will have to pay to dispose of if rather than me.

I could smell the scent of lilies on the air from Buckingham Palace every nignt from my home 20 years ago. I would not have believed it if I hadn't experienced it. It was a weird time. A couple of days after Diana's funeral it was shovelled up. It couldn't go on - rotting vegetation and all that, but it was only there for about 10 days. It was turned into compost for the Royal Parks. It was what she would have wanted

From a quick google search I see the bodyguard has amnesia following his serious head injuries.

He worked for that nut Fayed. Of course he said he had amnesia. He just didn't want to talk.

In the Independent today, the fireman Mr Gourmelon said:

Mr Gourmelon said he was sure Diana would survive.

“I could see she had a slight injury to her right shoulder but, other than that, there was nothing significant. There was no blood on her at all,” he told The Sun

I do hope no-one's trying to make a conspiracy around this. Why on earth would anyone place any weight on a fireman's medical opinion based on whether he could see an external injury? Surely it's pretty obvious that a high speed crash is liable to result in internal injuries for passengers not wearing seatbelt?

MuchasSmoochas - please share book title! I want one for my coffee table.

It's a shame that people feel the need to be unkind about someone who died 20 years ago. Let it go fgs. You can be hypercritical of the public, the Blair government and the media but let the dead rest in peace.

The trouble with that approach is that in effect it allows history to be rewritten. With the papers again spinning the notion that she was some sort of tragic living saint, if no-one's allowed to say anything that might remotely be construed as unkind then a load of lies go unchallenged. Furthermore, being kind to the dead in this case tends to involve being pretty unkind to the living, which is grossly unfair on them.

Ceto I think a fireman would have a very shrewd idea of potential injuries and it was his opinion based on experience. Everyone seems so keen to dismiss the opinion of someone who was actually there at the scene of the accident. Didn't a doctor also say the same thing?

But how would a fireman assess injuries based on seeing someone without examining them, Chestervase?

Accusing the Duke of Edinburgh of murder is a bit nutty.

Ceto but he did asses her injuries and probably assumed she would be rushed to hospital so that they could examine her for internal injuries.

I was saddened by Diana's death of course. But the only time I shed a tear was when I saw the card with 'Mummy' written on it. That was very poignant.

But I did think the mass hysteria was nauseating and it was wrong that William and Harry were forced to go back to London; I remember seeing how bewildered they looked when facing the crowds who thought they were sharing their grief. It was nauseating.

Nobody would have dared to write all these comments about Diana 20 years ago.

Diana died because of a torn pulmonary vein which is one of the two blood vessels to the heart. They couldn't repair it so her blood pressure dropped and she suffered heart failure.

She wasn't wearing a seat belt but that inury can happen even if you are. It's wise to belt up but if you hit a concrete post at 80 mph all bets are off.

Ceto but he did asses her injuries and probably assumed she would be rushed to hospital so that they could examine her for internal injuries.

Did he? How? Did he have a stethoscope and a sphygmomanometer, for instance? And if he assumed she would be rushed to hospital, did he not know that that isn't automatic? Plus, as I understand it, the delay in moving her so that they could treat her at the scene is pretty common practice amongst French paramedics - surely an experienced fireman would have known that?

Ceto as an experienced fireman he was expressing his opinion. A doctor also expressed the same opinion. I have no idea if he had a stethoscope or sphygmomanometer but presumably a paramedic had one.

Teacake, I completely agree, all those rumours about the Royal Family paying MI5, ridiculous! She wasn't wearing a seatbelt and the driver was drunk! Both these things are enough of an explanation for that car crash.

I think the reason for all the anger being misdirected the way it was can be explained by Henri Paul being dead. If he'd survived then the anger would have been against him. And against the Ritz Hotel and Mohammed Al Fayed. How did it come about that Paul was allowed to drive the car???

Book is Diana The Illustrated Biography. I believe a little known newspaper published it [ahem] can't say who or will be banned.

Who said up thread she wasn't beautiful?!! Stunning.

As another op has said Diana's pulmonary vein had been damaged and her heart had been displaced to the right hand side of her body.

The massive internal injuries caused her to arrest and despite their best efforts, including manual stimulation of the heart, they were just too great for survival.

She would have looked 'uninjured' from the outside.

I don't think indulging in conspiracy theories is helpful.

Of course it was mass hysteria, this is blindingly obvious. Like almost all other cases of mass hysteria there was a real tragedy underneath. But the intensity of the mass grief was because a lot of people felt she warranted it. Was it because she was a royal, a celebrity, Diana or all 3? Many of them would not have felt the same had she been a Kardashian, or someone they knew living on their street. The untimely deaths of Prince, Kurt Cobain, Freddie Mercury, Jill Dando and Rachel Nickell - combined - caused less public mourning than Diana's. Which seems nuts.

"They did a merciless item on various Poly Filla type columns in the first editions of the Sunday papers being snide or outright nasty about Diana because of the Dodi Fayed connection, compared with the very hasty hagiographical rewrites from the later editions. grin The hypocrisy from the press was staggering"

Round here they did not pull all the original first editions in time. I remember the Sunday Mirror colour supplement that day only had loads and loads if photos of Diana and Dodi on the yacht.

Who said up thread she wasn't beautiful?!! Stunning

I wouldn't say stunning. Attractive yes, and more handsome than beautiful. I walk past 10 or 15 women more attractive on my way to work and they presumably don't have full-time stylists and unlimited clothes budgets.

People see what they want to see with Diana and in the eyes of some she's become a secular saint with the less palatable bits of her character wholly written out or having praise heaped on her for mundane things. Diana, the helpless victim of press intrusion, who courted the media and played them like a fiddle. (Now we live in a more media savvy age, her attempts at media manipulation are quite transparent), the supposedly wronged and betrayed wife who had no qualms about sleeping with other women's husbands.

Or my favourite 'she loved her kids' well don't most parents love their children? I'm sure their father loved them to.

Muchas - thanks. It's on my birthday list. And yes she was stunning.

I fell in love with Diana on the day she got engaged when I was 6. I was absolutely in love with her growing up! I was very upset about her death. Reading through all these posts makes me feel sad that others judge me that I was affected.

I did queue for hours to sign her book of condolence and laid flowers. The reason for this was it simply was my way of paying respect to her.

However I was taken aback about her sons having to walk behind her funeral procession. I don't think I have ever spoken to one person who thought that was right. I am not sure that the public mourning can be held responsible for that decision made by the Royal Family.

I think people either liked Diana or didn't - but you can't hold a dead person responsible for how people reacted to that persons death. Grief affects everyone differently.

Despite her many faults you cannot blame Diana for being more popular than the Royal Family as it was at that time. She was treated appallingly and so were her children being made to follow their mother's coffin because it was their duty.

It wouldn't surprise me if both William and Harry had very different thoughts about their father than what has been spun recently.

I think it is clear that William and Harry love their father very much. I'm not sure why you think any different?