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.

Diana? Urgh.

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.

That's what he claimed at the time. However an awful lot of evidence contradicts this, from Diana and also other independent people who say it went on from the start of the marriage, and in terms of an emotional affair never stopped.

I don't think he's been hard done by either. He's a notoriously spoilt, selfish and egotistical man who surrounds himself with flatterers and sycophants. He has a very high opinion of himself to the point where he tries to interfere in politics attempting to overrule qualified experts because he thinks he knows better.

He has a reputation for losing his temper very easily and screaming and shouting at servants. He's prone to eeyorish bouts of self pity and never takes responsibility for any misfortune in his life.

He's just not a very nice man really.

She may not have had enough common sense to see the risk she was taking (in marrying Charles), but I do feel her family should have thought things through a bit better. Maybe they were so keen to get that alliance with the Royal Family that they didn't think or care, but in any other circumstances surely parents would advise their 19yo daughter to get to know her 31yo boyfriend a bit better before making an engagement public (and they'd probably be hoping that she would think better of it before too long)
Perhaps there was an assumption that he was a decent man from a decent family who would treat her well.

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

Thing is, if you say well the situation was a little more complex and Diana wasn't wholly above reproach, the devotees of the cult of Saint Diana , automatically assume you are casting Charles as the hero and Diana as the villan because they are so black and white in their thinking. Anything that varies from their 'poor helpless, selfless Diana, the most beautiful woman in the world BD the perfect mother cruelly betrayed be that heartless, unfeeling weirdo Charles' is interpreted as unquestioningly support for him.

They can't seem to get their heads around the idea there's shades of grey and both were ill equipped and ill suited for a marriage to the other

Unfortunately people can't just switch off loving someone else, especially if they're stuck in an unhappy marriage. Diana herself was said towards the end of her life to have accepted that the physical affair stopped for several years.

I'm not sure if you've met PC Margaret, despite your character assessment, but I do know quite a few people who worked with the family for years (they're called "staff" by the way, not "servants") who liked him very much. They didn't like Diana - "one face for the press, another for the staff" is a direct quote.

As for "thinking he knows better" that was a well known problem with Diana. I once heard her described as "impossible to brief" because, despite her limited education, she thought she knew more about foreign affairs than the experts.

maybe they were so keen to get that alliance with the Royal Family that they didn't think or care

I once heard the Spencer family (not just this generation) described as the biggest social climbers in England.

Margaret has nailed it for me.
In one of the recent documentaries I was surprised to a ballet teacher recount Diana telling her of Charles' hooking up with Camilla again within a year of their marriage, when she was pregnant with Prince William.
I also read the success of Charles and Camilla's marriage is down to her spending A LOT of time apart from him at the family home she has had for decades in Wiltshire. Maybe even she can only tolerate him in small doses.

Boys of course they both had good and bad sides but someone recently said Diana won the PR war because she was ruthless and better looking. Personally I went right off her at the Taj Mahal, it was so patently manipulative.

I also firmly believe that if Diana had been less glamorous or Camilla more so, people would have cared less. I once saw PC escorting Queen Rania of Jordan at an event and thought at the time, if Camilla looked like that, there'd be far less fuss.

I doubt Charles had much choice over who he would marry, in the end. He was getting on, and the various women who may have been suitable were either snapped up or the wrong religion, or not virgins. He was under pressure to find someone and Diana was simply there. She'd grown up at Sandringham, was likely to be a virgin, was young enough to easily produce an heir and spare, was already known as Charles had dated her sister. It was an arrangement. The RF saw it as an opportunity to sell the public a fairy tale which we fell for. Even the Archbishop referred to the marriage as a fairy tale ffs!

Sadly it was anything but.

louise, all of the servants (because we all know what that word means and it's totally appropriate if not the official term) who have written about him have written about an explosive temper, having things thrown at them, being shouted at and a huge sense of entitlement. That included not squeezing his own toothpaste and having a servant hold a sample bottle for him to wee in. Princess Diana came in for a bashing too. Patrick Jephson portrayed her as verging on insane and the housekeeper who wrote a book said she was difficult. But the fact she was difficult doesn't make Charles' dickheaded behaviour any less dickheadish.

And excuse me for relying on actual published and sourced accounts rather than believing some random on the internet claiming their brother's babysitters aunty once worked for them and told them x.

As far as intervening with policy, Diana is on record doing that once, with land mines.

Charles on the other hand regularly and directly writes to government ministers interfering with policy on a variety of topics. He's a prolific writer of what they have called 'spider letters' which basically insist his own personal views are taken into account. It's even been suggested that should he should continue to do this after he is King, it would seriously compromise the constitutional monarchy and might lead to it being necessary to remove him. So not really comparable at all.

Nettletheelf You're right, yes they're worse, some of them much worse. An entitled lazy bunch of parasites is a description which comes to mind.

True that it was because we had a day off work (I was 7 at the time, though, and they went on about it at school!). But I think VE Day was a bit different!

And no, not everyone was a fan. But those who weren't kept their mouths shut when talking to people who were, speaking for myself here.

And the wailing was ridiculous, and the pawing of the boys was completely wrong. That's called exhibitionism. But it's also what happens in large crowds, witness what happens at football matches or rock concerts.

I am going to go against the status quo now.....I get it; she was the one person in the Royal family that seemed genuine and empathetic. I also think deep down, all of the people who claim not to "get it" do get it; they just didn't personally hold her or her views, that challenged many traditionally held British values, in the same esteem as the people who genuinely mourned her. Any hoo; to each his own.

I also read the success of Charles and Camilla's marriage is down to her spending A LOT of time apart from him at the family home she has had for decades in Wiltshire. Maybe even she can only tolerate him in small doses.

I think you've been reading too many tabloids and gossip mags. Given their jobs, it's inevitable they have to spend a fair amount of time apart. I think the secret of most successful marriages lies in each party giving the other enough space to do their own thing and be themselves.

Margaret, it's well known that that story about the toothpaste is a massive exaggeration and relates to one very short period when Charles had a broken arm. If that's the level of your research, you should maybe think again about believing it against individuals' direct experience.

BoysofMelody IMHO the situation is complex and there were no villains or saints. However I did admire Diana and thought she had some very special qualities. She doesn't have to be a saint. Personally I remember hearing a speech where she spoke about what children of addicts go through. My mum was an alcoholic who was still drinking at the time. I really appreciated her words and it really touched me that someone CARED how people in my situation felt. I can only imagine how amazing it was for the AIDS patients she visited in the mid 80s felt.

HappyDaysAreHere
My sentiments entirely.

Eliza

I don't want to run down what was an important event to you and her words clearly resonated with you, but I wonder what did she do other than visit, say a few words written and researched by some else and then a brief meet and greet, smile before being whisked off in a limo to the next cause, possibly selected by her advisor. Seems quite close to what other Royals do and did (albeit with causes that were seen as edgy in the 80s or 90s, but we're obviously no less deserving). This article. [[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/26/the-princess-myth-hilary-mantel-on-diana Hilary Mantel in the Guardian]] suggested that she'd picked these causes out of a sense of self fulfilment and a misplaced sense of affinity, rather than a desire to change things. At best she rode awareness about issues and may have had genuine human, albeit brief connections with people brought forward to meet, but she could and perhaps should have done more, in my opinion.

Well they only met a grand total of 12 times before they walked up the aisle and said I do, he was originally to marry her sister, who said no to the gig as she said she would not marry a man she did not love. So diana agreed when Jane said no
Bluntness, you are talking out of your arse here. They met 13 times on a romantic basis (ref. what Diana said in the C4 documentary) but many times in a group of family friends since birth. The sister Charles dated first was Sarah and it ended because she was a little too chatty about the relationship with the press.
It's odd that posters who claim to passionately dislike these people, seem to spend so much time soaking up information and misinformation about them to be able to pontificate. Try a more constructive hobby.

Twelve times in a romantic relationship as a prelude to engagement is still a very small number.

While i agree that the national grief & people's crazy reactions were OTT (my mum herself stayed in dressing gown for 1 week after, but in fairness she lost her mum at age 16 & was diagnosed wiv bipolar 9 years later, so is a bit prone to the dramatic), it is worth noting that Diana WAS an ACTUAL Princess! She did after all marry Prince Charles, son of the Queen which makes you a Princess by marriage (much the same way that Kate has become a Princess by marrying the Queen's grandson Prince William). Both also had children & are thereby related by blood to future heirs to the thrown. However, I LOVE both the Queen (my hubby sang in her choir for 23 years at Chapel in Great Park & i have seen her, Phillip, Andrew & girls several times - i even spoke to Prince Phillip once) & Kate who is a massively measured, glamourous & courteous woman. Nothing but the utmost respect for them both. Princess Diana? Jury is out - never got to meet her personally / see her do her duties.

Or thirteen.

Am I the only person who finds the story upthread about the Radio DJ who got into trouble for playing Oh What a Circus from Evita, very funny? The lyrics could just as easily be applied to the mass hysteria in the days after Diana's death.

BoysofMelody I suppose we can be cynical and say that she got help writing speeches but I do believe she was genuinely compassionate and sensitive. It doesn't really matter if she came up with the words herself. To hear someone of that stature talk about something which affects you is massive. You don't hear much about how addiction affects families unfortunately so that really stood out for me.
Let's be honest, royals never did that kind of thing before her and now we have William and Harry's work on mental health which I think is going to make a big difference at least in terms of awareness. That wouldn't have happened without Diana.

No, Unicorn, you're not the only one who laughed at that story.

If you want something even funnier, I suggest that you read the poem that Lewis Hamilton tweeted. It's all his own work. He rhymes 'hope' with 'hope' (clearly inspired by Kid Rock's masterpiece version of Sweet Home Alabama) and describes Diana as a 'shinning star'. It's so moving.