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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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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6
TizzyDongue · 31/08/2017 08:43

She was 'the people's princess' because she wasn't n actual princess wasn't she? Or some such schmaltzy reason.

I wasn't a fan either. Recall feeling a bit shocked so many people appeared to adore her and were so invested.

What is odd is that despite it being 'the nation at grief' I knew exactly no one who was flower laying and weeping upset.

jamie2 · 31/08/2017 08:43

I have found my people on this thread. I thought I was the only one

ssd · 31/08/2017 08:43

it was a load of bloody nonsense, truth be told

I was newly pregnant with dc1 and used to walk home from work through a part of the city where people were laying flowers for Diana and every time I walked through I thought, who are these nutters? If you want to buy flowers, give them to your elderly neighbour who lives alone, or your mum.

The tv then was mystifying but this week its beyond even that, there was something on tv the other day "The week the nation cried", or something similar. I didn't cry and I don't know anyone who did. Of course I felt very sorry for the two boys but I'd feel sorry for any children who lost their mum.

Pennina · 31/08/2017 08:45

Happydays yes I think that was it really. There was so much blanket coverage of her - continually - and her life had become something of a combination of public property and even soap opera.

Many people really felt as if they knew her, felt great empathy towards her and her somewhat tragic situation with Charles, and it felt like a personal loss to them. The very real tragedy of the death of a beautiful young woman with her life ahead of her leaving behind two young boys compounded the very emotional response.

It was a real phenomena that just built up and up, as a PP said a real Tsunami situ

Mammyloveswine · 31/08/2017 08:45

I watched the BBC documentary and they played a radio clip of some bloke saying "my wife died in April and I've shed far more tears for Diana". I just thought that was terrible!

Of course it was extremely sad and my heart breaks every time I see Harry's little face (he looked tiny) walking behind his mothers coffin with millions of strangers all wailing like banshees! (And Willian too but harry tugs at my heartstrings!)

sooperdooper · 31/08/2017 08:46

The tv then was mystifying but this week its beyond even that, there was something on tv the other day "The week the nation cried", or something similar. I didn't cry and I don't know anyone who did.

No neither did I but that's how it'll be recorded in history which really annoys me, having actually lived through it!

AtlanticWaves · 31/08/2017 08:46

I don't understand the wailing and crying but out family did feel sad.

I felt sad cos William is just a couple of weeks younger than me so I was imagining how I would feel if I lost my mum right then.

My parents also felt sad for the same reason. My mum also felt that she'd been badly treated by the royal family, but I wasn't too aware of all that.

We didn't take to the streets though.

MadamMinacious · 31/08/2017 08:47

I didn't understand it at the time and I still don't. I felt for William and Harry who lost a very warm mother to be brought up without that buffer within the royal family but I didn't know her - although apparently I loved her as a child. I think people identified more with her than with other royals but some of the grief was very ostentatious. I can feel empathy and I have definitely cried for others - I have a tendency to cry easily to my embarrassment - but I wasn't really swept along with this. I do wish she'd had the opportunity for a happier life though.

NormaSmuff · 31/08/2017 08:47

I cried watching Elton John singing at the actual funeral.
I had an electric company drop by on the friday before the funeral, the end of the week of mass grief asking if i would like to change electricity providers, i remember wondering how on earth he could be so tactless to bother me when there was this actual event, candle lit, going on - it was very emotional and I was not even a Diana fan. Confused

Ifailed · 31/08/2017 08:47

The very real tragedy of the death of a beautiful young woman

Would it have been different if she hadn't been 'beautiful'?

EdmundCleverClogs · 31/08/2017 08:48

HappydaysArehere, she may have been a lovely mother, however the rest is very much opinion. She wasn't innocent in her marriage, and was quite happy to manipulate the media for her own means when it suited her. The doe eyed victim act was wearing thin by the end, if I remember correctly much public opinion was turning against her in her final year.

It was terrible those boys lost their mother, and in such a horrible and public way. However that's where public pity should have ended - much like all 'celebrities' these days who are famous for just being famous, no one really knew the real her, only the face she presented to the public. Unless you listen to that odious toad Burrell of course, who apparently knew everything and remembers more when his bank balance looks low .

HaPPy8 · 31/08/2017 08:48

She was 36 years old, it was tragic. I agree with Happy above.

WomblingThree · 31/08/2017 08:49

The endless reliving of it is grim. The only people with any right to that level of grief for anyone are family and friends. It makes me nauseous to see public displays.

I had a tiny newborn when she died and I will admit to being very sad for those poor little boys, but other than that, it wasn't my bereavement to mourn.

MagdalenLaundry · 31/08/2017 08:50

I found it false
I thought it was more that they wanted to be a part of history. I find the hijacking of somebody elses grief very distasteful
I'm sure it didn't help her children at all
You see other well know figures being hijacked. Look at MM the groups talk like they actually know her

maddiemookins16mum · 31/08/2017 08:50

I got massively caught up in the whole grief thing (stirred up by the press). The sight of those two boys walking behind the coffin still makes me shake my head in disbelief that they had to do that.
However, funnily enough, DP and I were only saying this morning that I think the Queen was right to keep the boys up at Balmoral for those 5 days before the funeral. At the time, many of us thought differently as the press encouraged us to ("where is our Queen?", was one headlin"). The answer to that was protecting two traumatised children.
Diana was no angel, she had 'issues' but she was a 36 year old mother, sister, friend and people loved her.

NormaSmuff · 31/08/2017 08:51

People crying were on the news, I think you couldnt help but feel emotional being shown pictures of people crying. the huge candlelit vigil.

ssd · 31/08/2017 08:51

and all this slagging off of the royal family and Charles...God knows I'm no fan, I think they are all leeches....but the boys seem to have grown up into nice decent men, so they didn't do a bad job of raising them

YouTheCat · 31/08/2017 08:53

It bewildered me. I had the exmil weeping and wailing and going on about how it was all the Queen's fault. Hmm

I just thought she was horrendously stupid to be galavanting about with no seatbelt on. She certainly wasn't thinking about her boys then (and I did and do feel sorry for them, losing their mother). I don't think she behaved in a particularly dignified way.

That Burrell is a knobend. He's still cashing in now.

ssd · 31/08/2017 08:53

Nicholas Witchell on the BBC is as nauseating as ever, thats one thing that did not change

Sayyouwill · 31/08/2017 08:53

Her children and family were grieving. The nation wasn't grieving.
She was a remarkable woman, she died, she had young children, it's all very sad. But people were piggybacking off of the families grief.
Still even now people go bananas about it. Yes it was sad, but how does it directly have any impact on your life?
I have an aunt who took a whole week off work when it happened Hmm

thegreylady · 31/08/2017 08:53

I too thought it tragic that any young mum should die tragically. However she too had affairs and, in life, milked her popularity. A sad sad lady but no outpouring of grief needed except from her close family and friends. I felt sorry for her sons and for the Queen's bewildered dignity.

Groovee · 31/08/2017 08:53

We were in New York when Diana passed away. Went to a theme park and the guy asked what passport it was. Dh said British and the guy replied "I'm so sorry for your loss!" We had no clue what he was talking about. When we realised we just said thank you and moved on. But we didn't feel like we had lost someone.

tigerdriverII · 31/08/2017 08:54

Just when you think MN has gorn to the dogs, a thread like this pops up and sanity is restored.

I too don't get 'iconic and inspirational '. To me she was a dull Sloane who was reasonably pretty and married a weirdo who cheated on her. So far, so normal. Of course one feels for her boys: their upbringing must have been bizarre in any event and it was a private tragedy to lose their mother.

ssd · 31/08/2017 08:55

youthecat, that's just a nasty thing to say, gallivanting indeed, you sound a match for your exmil

JiminyBillyBob · 31/08/2017 08:55

My friends vile, abusive DH (now ex, thank god) took to his bed for 2 days after she died.
Then dragged DF and their two small children to London so they could queue for hours to sign the book of remembrance and lay some eye wateringly expensive flowers.

He'd never, ever bought my friend so much as a bunch of petrol station daffs 😡