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.

Purple Did you really say that?

It's interesting to look back on Diana now, as part of history.

However the RF had been behaving oddly too. Anyone remember Royal It's a Knockout? Totally bizarre, looking back. The RF were behaving like a circus act, there was Squidgygate and Tampaxgate, Fake Sheiks, book deals, cringeworthy interviews by PD and PC, divorces galore and Windsor Castle on fire. It was quite surreal and entertaining. Poor old Queenie! She seemed quite bewildered by it all.

Strange times indeed...

Yes the misogyny on this thread is something to behold.

I never understood why the wailing etc I actually remember my son who was 10 at the time asking why they were doing that, I strongly believe that a majority of the tears where for the 2 princes, who looked so lost. I was very sad for them, but wailing?? You don't even do that when a family member dies

I think Charles has been very, very unfairly villified.

The man has been basically brainwashed since the day was born into living a life of duty and to wait for his mother to die so he can get her job. Although some of his ideas were a bit silly and impractical (like suggesting that he worked down a coal mine for a while) he did make some effort to be useful - and things like The Prince's Trust have been absolutely amazing.

He was told he had to marry someone suitable, a virgin, someone with breeding. He was told to get on with it....the country expects. The love of his life had just married someone else. So he basically did what he thought was expected and married "the right type of girl".

It was always going to be a disaster but he apparently did try to make it work and didn't cheat until after Diana had and their marriage was irretrivably broken down.

Diana can't really be blamed either. She was young, probably a bit immature, damaged by her childhood and desperate to be loved...by a man who didn't have much experience of love.

If they were anyone else, they'd have been able to admit their mistakes earlier, divorced and moved on. It was the years of having to remain married and put on some kind of public show of togetherness that really did all the damage, in my opinion.

Diana was not a saint and Charles was not/is not a sinner.

There were many reasons why people reacted as they did, some already have been mentioned.

The main reason was that she was the best thing that had happened to the Royal Family when she married Charles.

Before Diana the Royals were seen as very stuffy, unemotional and only interested in horses and horse shows. She brought a huge breath of fresh air to the whole family with her caring ways, her beauty, her youth and the fact that she had normal feelings towards her children and husband, like the rest of us. She cuddled them, she hugged them, she kissed them in public and she cared about them and loved them. They went to school near to Windsor, not hundreds of miles away in Scotland, as Charles had done.

She was privileged and she knew that and acknowledged it. She wanted to use her privilege and fame for good by supporting often unpopular causes, like Leprosy, Aids and Landmine charities. She also did many small kindnesses and was a genuinely caring person.

She was treated very badly by Charles and those around him. He knew he loved someone else when he married her and should never have done so. When it was clear she was suffering from feeling unloved and from all the attention from the media, then there were stories put out that she was "mad" and she was even called a "loose cannon", not long before her death when she was in Africa attending an event for a landmine charity.

She was probably the only Royal who the public could really connect with. She had wealth, privilege and fame and everyone loved her. The only one who didn't was Charles. Many women could understand her situation - her favourite song was "I will survive"!

Don't forget 1997 was before the internet, facebook, emojis and it was still a "stiff upper lip" time. People didn't hug in the streets like they do now. I think Diana made us more emotionally aware and mature and not afraid to express our emotions - that will be one of her legacies. She was one of a kind and I still feel hearbroken at her death, especially for her sons and her grandchildren who she never met. It's important to remember her as she was and to understand why she was so loved by ordinary people.

I actually don't think "everyone loved her". That's a sepia print recollection. Most people were nosily interested but very few bought into the Saint Diana notion. She was being mocked quite openly before she died which is what made the weeping and wailing so unbelievably hypocritical.

Yes, she may have been a adored by a few royalists who had plates with her face on, but the majority of Brits were: "That's a nice dress. Tell me more about Squidgygate".

She had wealth, privilege and fame and everyone loved her

Could you not be bothered reading the the thread or something. Clearly everyone didn't love her. Not even close. You did, that's fine, but the vast majority of the population had no strong feelings either way. Pretending everyone else did, is silly, especially when posting on a thread where people are saying they didn't. It just makes your post a bit daft.

Bluntness you took the words out of my mouth! Of course not everyone loved her, what a ridiculous thing to say on this thread where so many people have said over and again they most certainly didn't!

@TabbyMack, I quite agree. Charles doesn't come across well so it's difficult for the public to have sympathy for him. He made mistakes (don't we all?) and he played a significant part in the breakdown of his marriage to Diana.

But he has causes he pationately believes in, and the Prince's Trust does a lot of good. He cares about the future of the planet. But because he comes across as stuffy and awkward, the public don't see that.

He interferes too much in politics too, which will definitely need to be reined in when he does become king.

I don't think he's well suited to his future role but time will tell.

Somebody upthread said that Diana's death wa the first time that British people had 'come together in shared grief' or whatever. Was it, now? What about the Remembrance Sunday events that have taken place for almost 100 years? Don't they count?

Somebody else said that 1997 was a 'stiff upper lip time' when people 'didn't hug on the street'. Are you kidding? I was 26 in 1997. Not many stiff upper lips around before the death of Saint Diana, I can tell you. People behaved very similarly to the way they do now, including hugging friends and family in the street, and to suggest that the embarrassing conduct of the Diana funeral wailers somehow unleashed repressed emotion in the British is just bonkers.

I don't think Charles was as innocent as Tabbymac says. He maybe didn't have a physical relationship with Camilla until after Diana had been unfaithful but I suspect there was very much an emotional affair there from the beginning.
He shouldn't have married her as they had nothing in common. On the other hand Diana pretended they had more in common than they did by pretending to enjoy polo matches/ Balmoral etc until they were married. She was very young though, only 3 years older than me and girls' magazines at that time were full of "great" advice like pretending to have an interest in your boyfriend's hobbies. He should maybe have seen through it and got to know her better.
Neither were villains or saints. Just 2 people who should have had a brief fling then moved on rather than got married.

Despite the footage of huge crowds and acres of flowers, it was only a minority of the British public who joined in with the grief-fest. I remember two supermarkets near me jumped on the bandwagon and created their own "books of condolence" - a concept previously unknown to many. Town Halls did the same I think. Queues of people formed to write their thoughts, imagining they were part of history, before grabbing a trolley and stocking up with the week's groceries. One of my friends signed, and I told her the book would be chucked in the bin next week. Anyone know what happened to all those books?

I suspect there was very much an emotional affair there from the beginning

Actually to be fair, I think he cut contact and for two or three years or something. They got back together, and yes clearly he was in love, but I do think they were out of contact for quite a long time, so don't think it's fair to say he was having an emotional affair.

She was unfaithful. He was unfaithful, she went to the press and told everyone about his unfaithfulness, but failed to mention her own.

Considering she had two young children, and she was saying this publicly on record about their father, and also their grandparents took a bashing, tapes she knew her children would eventually see. That's really unpleasant behaviour and I think it was selfish self promoting behavuour at its worst. Usually parents try to protect their kids from the vagrancies of their marriages, not diana, she threw publicly slaughtered their father whilst painting herself as a saint and not mentioning her own terrible behavuour.

I think that people imagined that the ridiculous 'books of condolence' they signed would go straight to Buckingham Palace, where the queen and prince Charles would read each one and learn some valuable lessons from the people, whilst simultaneously empathising with the personal emotional trials the people signing the books documented. After which they might enter into correspondence with some of the book signers, like Saint Diana would have, probably.

In reality, Limer, I suspect you were correct about the books going into the bin.

Two emotionally immature people who'd had unhappy childhoods got together and made each other and themselves even more unhappy.

I don't think there are any saints and sinners in this story. Only two deeply flawed and mismatched people who were pressured into an ill judged marriage.

@Nettletheelf, And I believe that the country came together on VE Day, at the end of the Second World War?? And then again for Winston Churchill's state funeral (whatever our views about him, that's another thread).

It's what we do. We also had street parties for the Silver Jubilee.

The reason for not wearing a seat belt is part of the mystery. She always insisted on wearing one.

And yes, it was a bad marriage, as are many others. I worked for a Family Law solicitor for a while; there are many stories just like theirs, but we don't hear about them.

It was very sad she died and left behind her two young boys, but she was just an ordinary woman who none of us knew. None of the royals are any better or worse than the rest of us. I dread to think of the mass hysteria when the queen goes. Again, just an ordinary (but very privileged woman).

Considering she had two young children, and she was saying this publicly on record about their father, and also their grandparents took a bashing, tapes she knew her children would eventually see. That's really unpleasant behaviour and I think it was selfish self promoting behavuour at its worst. Usually parents try to protect their kids from the vagrancies of their marriages, not diana, she threw publicly slaughtered their father whilst painting herself as a saint and not mentioning her own terrible behavuour.

I think Charles was in there first with the unpleasant behaviour and failing to protect his two young sons by his continued affair with Camilla.

The royals are certainly no better than us, but do you truly believe that they are no worse?

Prince Andrew, say? The duke of Windsor (ex Edward VIII, who consorted with nazis during WW2)? The range of people (including Fergie and Sophie) who tried to make money out of their royal connections?

We also had street parties for the Jubilee

We had street parties because we had an extra day off work and people enjoy a party, especially if they have no work the following day.

I cried when she died. I was 18 and my tears were mostly for her sons, as I couldn't imagine losing my mum at that age, as I was only a few years older than them. I know she wasn't a saint, but I did respect how she helped highlight and deal with controversial issues and bucked convention - such as shaking hands with an AIDS victim and walking among landmines. I also think the Royal Family learned a lot from her, and from people's reaction to her death. This '20 years' coverage will have had a huge amount of orchestration from the Royals in order to show how far they've come in the years since her death. It's not all media-driven. The coverage does them no harm at all - especially with William and Harry fronting it. I'm not a royalist, but I really like William and Harry and I think many people feel the same.

It's demonstrably untrue that "everyone" loved Diana. They didn't.

Also, 1997 was neither "stiff upper lip time" or pre internet. It wasn't used in the all-encompassing way it is today but it most certainly existed.

BoysofMelody I entirely agree with you which is why I'm sick of the vilification of Charles.