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.

I think the media whipped it up. if there hadn't been loads of journalists hanging about Kensington palace taking photos of all the folk laying flowers then other folk wouldn't have felt that was the place to be, especially if you wanted to be on TV and tell your friends you'd been in the event of the moment.
I think the media have to be aware that they don't just record the news, by deciding something is newsworthy and focussing on it for day on end they create it.
It did seem as though all UK journalists hung around Kensington palace for about a week after her death and nothing happening anywhere else was important. The millions of folk getting on with their jobs/ kids/ weddings/ funerals in the rest of the UK were ignored.

I always understood that Charles couldn't marry Camilla as she wasn't a virgin. Back then that mattered, especially to royalty.

Their relationship certainly appears to have stood the test of time.

The media did whip it up. It was the only thing on the television for a whole week, until the funeral was over. You literally couldn't watch anything else at all.

I'm from a different country so watched from a distance.

I found it very sad that a young mother and someone who did a lot of good in the world died far too young, I was bewildered by the people lining the streets crying and wailing and calling out to William and Harry. It was completely inappropriate and I do remember thinking that the British public needed to get a grip at the time (the same public that bought the tabloids and thus supported the paparazzi that caused her death)

I was also annoyed that she put herself in that position, in a speeding car wearing no seatbelt with a drunk driver in the early hours. It was reckless.

I remember my friend phoning me early the next morning to tell me that Diana had died. I'm not particularly royalist but it was a shock and I felt sad. No I wasn't weeping and wailing but yes I shed some tears as I have done for many people who have died and I felt a sense of disbelief. I found the level of grief portrayed a bit surprising from people who didn't know her but her death was the first young person at the time who people felt a connection to. We had watched the dream and fantasy we were sold of the royal wedding and we felt angry at the way she was treated by the royal family. I feel she was a fantastic ambassador who was just finding her stride and think she would have offered a lot more to humanitarian causes. Yes there was press manipulation, of course there was. She was called "the People's Princess" when her title was stripped following the divorce and it did portray how fondly many people felt towards her. I don't think she was a saint and it's obvious she was struggling with a lot of personal issues but she had something that many people don't. She connected with people. She just had that ability to do that at a time when the royals were quite stuffy. There was a strong feeling in the country that the queen didn't give her the respect or acknowledgement that she maybe deserved and there was a lot of confused feelings about that at the time of Diana's death. I do think her death was suspicious. I think she was a problem to the royal family. I think there's much we don't know. I did comment the other day though that nobody mentions Dodi and how hard this must be for his family too.

I think national grief is something we are more used to nowadays since social media has taken off. We can hashtag our grief when sad things happen. Terrorism is one example. I grew up in the days of the IRA attacks and narrowly missed being a victim of a bomb attack but it was just daily life and nobody hashtagged it or had a profile picture to change. That's not to say there wasn't enormous grief and confusion, it's just the world has changed since then and expressing our grief publicly is more acceptable. I think Diana's death was the start of that coming together as a country when something very sad has happened. It was a strange thing to do 20 years ago for us stiff upper lip Brits but it's definitely becoming more commonplace now.

"she loved those boys"

did she?

In the sort of theatrical dramatic over emotional but quite superficial way you might "love" your big sister's kids if you knew you didn't actually have to look after them or take any sort of financial, emotional or other responsibility for them ever if you didn't feel like it, and could leave them without seeing them for 4 weeks just for fun - no unavoidable work trip, just feel like an extended holiday with your boyfriend without your school aged children for a month...

Children are after all far less of a commitment than puppies. One mustn't leave a puppy home alone for more than 4 hours. maybe 6 if one employs a jolly committed and faithful dog walker in the middle... Diana was a great mother, I'm sure she employed a fantastic nanny before going off with her boyfriend for no good reason - she was a saint, unlike some bitch trying to get benefit to support herself and her baby if her baby's father turned out to be a non aristocratic adulterous bastard dependant on the public purse benefits

Perfectly normal, everyone does it, carry on...

hang on a minute...

The OP is obtuse and a call to those similarly inclined

In the sort of theatrical dramatic over emotional but quite superficial way you might "love" your big sister's kids if you knew you didn't actually have to look after them or take any sort of financial, emotional or other responsibility for them ever if you didn't feel like it, and could leave them without seeing them for 4 weeks just for fun - no unavoidable work trip, just feel like an extended holiday with your boyfriend without your school aged children for a month...

They were at Balmoral with their father. It's always been well known that Diana wasn't given any choice about her sons taking part in Royal Family traditional events. She never spent Christmas with them - they always went to Sandringham, and they always went to Balmoral in the summer.

Besides, they had longer school holidays as private, about 8 weeks, so spending four weeks with her and four with their father is about right.

I think most people (including me) who went to boarding school would take great issue with you saying that it is an abdication of all parental responsibility.

limited why is the OP obtuse?

Diana was a child when she had her two babies, and never had to take responsibility for them.

She knew what she was doing when she sold herself to the heir to the throne despite the fact she didn't know him well and her social circle knew he loved a married woman in return for being the queen.

She wanted to be queen. She was of average intelligence and despite not totally understanding the ins and outs of palace politics did know what she was doing when she took the deal to be queen of England eventually. She broke her contract which is fair enough, except that she whinged about it, didn't keep her affairs with married men private and summoned the media to perform pieces of emotionally manipulative theatre.

TBH anyone objective would be able to see the narc in the sainted PD

Only we didn't know about narcs in 1997

Would she have been a good mother?

Of course she sodding wouldn't?

Did she do more to raise money for charity than comparable celebs like the mainly reviled Jeremy Beedle? Erm... Nope!

How would youn feel about your mum if she'd died while on a joy ride with her boyfriend and you hadn't seen her in a month?

Not great?

She was no better and no worse than the family of benefit recipients she married into, runny eye liner or not...

Margret I went to boarding school too as it happens.

A way to show your kid you love them it aint...

Practical for forces familes and ex pat families living in war zones or Saudi, yes.

but neither of those situations applies to Diana and her boys. She could have been a sahm if she'd wanted to.

Why do you need to understand? People could have felt a link/bond to her for all sorts of reasons. She did a lot of good works didn't she? & was shafted by the royal family too so maybe people felt sorry for her and then when she died the unfair irony of it hit them. I don't know. I do know I felt sad for her at the time. But I don't think wanting a thread full of people saying yeah, those people were stupid or whatever, is useful. Subject has been done to death on here. You are entitled to feel as you do - but so are other people. Thats all you need to understand, really

she loved those boys

I'm sure she did. Most people love their children.

Most people who die loved and was loved by someone else.

Oh the truth about her death is: the driver saw Lord Lucan riding Shergar up a grassy knoll, went 'What the fuck?' and drove into a pillar...

Evelyn - she was a child when she had her children, yet mature enough to know what she was doing when she married their father?

Doesn't compute.

Yours is a very nasty post.

queen of England There's no such title

For many, many months in the run up to her death she was being heavily criticised by almost everyone: the press, so-called friends (that she was always falling out with), the public....it was constant. (And to be fair she had been acting like a bit of a twat for much of the time. All the desperate attempts at gaining attention, mostly from men).

All instantly forgotten of course, and then she became a bloody Saint

I found the whole thing, and in particular the media's hypocrisy, bloody sickening.

My Mum said she felt a sort of reconnection with when my Grandma died. Brought back all the same feelings for her.
Perhaps because we all felt we knew her, the wedding, the slow drip of revelations about Charles and Camilla which went on for a long while ( denials, then finally admitting it). We all felt very involved and I think then the shock if such a young person dying meant we were all in it together - to coin a phrase!

Can't we just leave her to rest in peace?

I suspect many people can't understand why in 1997 Tony Blair became PM, but that's for another thread if someone wants to start one.

You are spot on OP.

When the gun carriage with Diana's coffin left St James Palace there were people in the crowd not just crying, but yowling.

But William and Harry remained composed.

It was incredibly selfish that onlookers who had never even met Diana behaved so mawkishly with no thought for her two grieving children.

If you look at the speech & tribute paid by the Queen in her live broadcast: , you can see at various moments HM's confusion & a hint of anger at people's unmeasured reaction to her death; & rightly so.

There was a film released in the cinema a few yrs ago about Diana. A friend of mine asked if I'd go and see it with her. Apparently saying 'I thought she was a whore who should have kept her knickers on ' wasn't the right response & she didn't speak to me for a few weeks! So no, I thought it was ridiculous and all this hype again is driving me nuts. (I also think Charles should have kept it in his trousers & if neither party were happy we have a thing called DIVORCE! I find cheating abhorrent).

Last night on My5 I watched "Paul Burrell In Therapy"

No lady, he's not stuck in the past because of deep seated issues. He can't let go of Diana as she's still his meal ticket.

You can tell when that odious little man is lying. His lips are moving.

Purplealien the language you use and attitude you display towards a woman is more abhorrent, I'm not surprised your friend didn't speak to you for weeks.

purplealienpuke I would also stop speaking to you if you said that to me about any woman. Interesting that you call Diana a 'whore' while Charles simply 'should have kept it in his trousers'.

sherbrooke you can also see from Prince Phillips reaction on the walkabout that he was angry. People telling him to look after the boys when they had been doing that, until they were forced away by the very people patronisingly telling him how to care for his family. And I meant 'pawing' btw. People were trying to touch the children on the walkabout. I would be furious if strangers tried to touch my children when they were deeply upset.