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.

The funeral was like the most fucked-up reality show ever.

I think judging people for grieving in any capacity is inherently wrong. If you're that 'not bothered' why start a thread about it? I'd hate her family to see some of these comments...not because I knew or cared but because that's someone's loved one. Think you really need to think twice before you vocalise things op.

It was shocking / surprising when she died. She'd been all over the news in the weeks before, so it was normal to be hearing about her and then she was suddenly dead, whereas the week before the newspapers were gossiping that her tummy wasn't toned enough. It just seemed a bit unreal.

There's always a few who get upset about things, but that week was different. I lived in london. When I drove past Kensington Palace, the flowers were everywhere. The florists were running out of flowers at first. The newspapers were full of it, page after page, day after day. On the train to work, I noticed that every single building had a flag at half-mast (i hadn't even realised they had flagpoles before that). On the tube, around Green park etc, there were people in the carriages with bouquets of flowers. Everyone seemed sad. it was the main topic of conversation everywhere - had the press killed her? Had prince Charles mistreated her? What did Dodi mean to her? Was the driver really drunk? Where did that leave her charities? What would become of her children? etc etc

I was perfectly sane when she died, but after 4 days of unremitting grief everywhere around me, I realised that I had tears in my eyes too. The grief was just infectious.

Then she was buried, and after a while, it was as though everyone woke up after having been hypnotised. Apparently it was like that when Prince albert died too - that's when people started painting railings outside their house black. I've never experienced anything like it, but I think you had to live through it as an adult to understand what a bizarre time it was because it doesn't really bear description.

Totally agree with HappyDaysAreHere,. For me, she was a breath of fresh air in a very stale family and had so much still to offer if she had gone on to be a UN ambassador.

I was 16 at the time and I remember thinking how dreadful all the wailing of 'Diana!' was as she went passed. I wasn't a fan,felt very sad for her children but I certainly didn't share the whole nations grief thing.

I did the same a week later when I saw her brother's stunning speech at her funeral (now considered one of THE great speeches).

You have got to be kidding me. One of THE great speeches! It was inappropriate, insensitive and utterly meaningless. It was an even more excruciatingly cringe-worthy moment than Elton John singing that re-purposed song - and that is saying something.

I wasn't a griever but I think to call those who were 'false', isn't right. They felt it, for various reasons. I think there are so few communal events these days that people go crazy for them when they crop up. It's a sense of belonging, rightly or wrongly, shallowly or meaningfully.

People identified with her on all sorts of levels. Yes, it isn't/wasn't what the 'British' do. To wail and cry and show emotion. And yes I as most people at the time felt very much for two children who, not only had their mother suddenly and tragically taken from them, but walked behind her coffin, whilst the public display was horrendously difficult to deal with.
However those of you who are totally cut off from your own emotions, or want to be, not about Diana especially, but about any display of emotion, will find it difficult to understand why this happened.
Let people be, let them express their feelings about something important to them.

I loved Diana, she was an inspiration. I was absolutely gutted when she died. The only reason I didn't mourn more was I was heavily pregnant at the time & felt I had to put it behind me & not dwell for the life inside me.

Her brother's speech was an outrage for reasons I have mentioned previously on this thread. 'Blood family' my ass. I would bet the boys didn't think much of it.

However those of you who are totally cut off from your own emotions, or want to be, not about Diana especially, but about any display of emotion, will find it difficult to understand why this happened.

Nice one Not rending your garments over a complete stranger does not mean you are cut off from your emotions. In fact, I think it means the opposite. I can't believe the competitive mourners would behave like that in the face of real and true emotion and grief. Y'know, the untimely death of your parent, or child, or sibling or friend.
It would be different if it was actual real sadness and loss they are experiencing, not just a cheap grief holiday in someone else's tragedy.

I agree with happy days are here some of us imagined what it must of felt like and could relate to it in some aspects for example i was a year older with 2 boys i didn't wail but was upset particularly as talk was it an accident!

I was in my early teens and thought all the wailing was bizarre. She was famous, apparently quite nice, pretty messed up and she died young. That's sad. But it wasn't a personal loss, not for the general population. Piggybacking on it as an opportunity to vent emotion was pretty fucking distasteful IMO, when her two young sons were actually grieving. It wasn't respectful, it was co-opting the drama of the whole situation. Like getting overly involved in a soap opera. Yuck.

It's like something Jeremy Hardy said once - 'I cried when Joe Strummer died, but I wouldn't tell his family that.' Have your own personal reaction by all means, but don't inflict it on the people who actually knew and loved the deceased. Similarly, you can let it be known what that person meant to you without indulging in a performance of conspicuous grief.

Yeah, Charles Spencer's toe curling eulogy is right up there with the Gettysburg Address and Churchill's "we will fight them on the beaches" in the pantheon of great speeches.

I was never a fan, and was totally perplexed by the utter insanity that ensued.

Yes, I felt sorry for her sons - just as I would for any child that had lost a parent, but this ridiculous beatification of a flawed and hugely privileged woman is a complete travesty. It's also an insult to those that had already dedicated their lives to the causes that Diana chose to increase her popularity with. Jodie Williams anyone?

I became a social pariah for not joining in with the grief-fest and for (shock horror) getting on with my life. Boy, did I heave a sigh of relief after reading Christopher Hitchens' piece on the subject.

The madness didn't entirely abate after the funeral, either. Who remembers the circus surrounding her will? Many people were demanding that Diana's estate be exempted from inheritance tax "because that's what she would have wanted". Madness.

I left the UK the morning she died and so watched all the hysteria from afar, thank goodness.

Most people where I moved to looked on aghast, thinking that the UK had collectively lost it's mind. All I remember feeling was toe-curling embarrassment and real distaste at all the weird, fake, attention-seeking wailing.

IMO, the whole public outpouring of grief at this woman who died came from the fact that the papers had been running the Royal Family Saga as some kind of soap opera for years. The problem was that when Diana died, nobody knew it was going to happen...in any soap opera you always get a bit of a spoiler before the main event. It was the unexpected nature of the death that caused all the ridiculous outpourings. There was nothing special about Diana. If she hadn't married into the Windsors she would've ended up stuck in an unfulfilled marriage in the home counties somewhere, packing the kids off to a second rate boarding school, drinking gin and having an affair with her tennis coach. Or something.

It was sad. It's always sad when someone dies, particularly if it's before their time. But the only people who need mourn are those that knew her well. Everyone else is just rubber-necking, however you might want to dress it up as 'empathising' to make yourself feel better.

i do not understand the screaming and crying at all for someone people dont know personally

@Agerbilatemycardigan, that's what I mean. It felt like you weren't allowed to not be upset about it or fed up with the non stop news coverage. Then I lost track with all of it because of my studies and by the time I'd finished my finals the world had moved on thankfully. That's why I missed the more balanced comments now I think about it.

But when it first happened and I felt the public had been grossly unfair to the Royal Family, and the boys in particular, I was given very short shrift by the Diana faithful.

I don't get the mass crying in the streets, but I did feel for William and harry.
Because of where I live, Diana was well known, she used to ride her horse to the same shop I visited as a child.
I was a year older than harry and really did think it would be horrible to loose my mum at that age. I admit I did see the funeral procession on the way to Althorpe but there wasn't mass hysteria that I can recall. We went because she was a local and we felt we needed to respect her.
My memory of the day are hazy, but the road was lined with people as far as the eye could see. Obviously not being in London it was a different atmosphere and although she became a Windsor, she was always a Spencer and our little unknown town and villages became more known when she married.

TheLuminaries

"It would be different if it was actual real sadness and loss they are experiencing, not just a cheap grief holiday in someone else's tragedy."

So Luminaries, when you grieve it's real sadness but when you don't feel a thing it's a cheap grief holiday? How horribly narcissistic of you.

'"Nice one wink Not rending your garments over a complete stranger does not mean you are cut off from your emotions. In fact, I think it means the opposite. I can't believe the competitive mourners would behave like that in the face of real and true emotion and grief. Y'know, the untimely death of your parent, or child, or sibling or friend.
It would be different if it was actual real sadness and loss they are experiencing, not just a cheap grief holiday in someone else's tragedy."

Really? So only a parent, child etc could be worth having strong feelings about? 'Real and true emotion' 'Cheap grief holiday' ?

You seem to know little about 'real' emotion, and know little about how, one might have the need to FEEL something, and identify with someone else who might have just shared similar feelings.
What does it matter to you that people showed how that felt? Since you believe it was all fake. You clearly need to expand your horizons, never mind your feelings.

Me too Mittens

Like I said in a previous comment - it was like the most fucked-up reality show ever. People seemed to be competing to see who could grieve the most.

One colleague actually said to me (and I quote) "You should be more upset, as you and Diana had a lot in common" The only thing we had in common, was that we'd both had a baby in the same year!

There are so many people who work tirelessly for others and never achieve recognition. The Diana thing always makes me think of Evita.