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on this day in 1981. Prince Charles & Lady Diana Spencer announced their engagement.

135 replies

TheDuchessOfNorksBride · 24/02/2008 18:33

So if you clearly remember this from an incredible 27 years ago, then you're no spring chicken!

OP posts:
NAB3wishesfor2008 · 24/02/2008 20:58

I just don't like her. I get a bad vibe about her.

Lots of nuggets to the press via her friends saying expect an engagement in Feb. Well we are a year on and still no sparkler!

SorenLorensen · 24/02/2008 20:59

Oh the wedding...that huge dress...and how crumpled it was from being crammed into the carriage.

I don't have a lot of time for the Royals (my scrap-booking days are over) but I was sad when she died. I'd just had ds1 - he was 5 months old - and dh told me the news when I woke up - I just thought of those boys growing up without a Mum...your friend is quite right, expat.

AitchTwoOh · 24/02/2008 20:59

oh she wasn't wearing maternity clothes, expat, she was in a bikini. hence the scandal.

the day she came out of hosp... green and white dress, huge collar and flicky hair. again, i thought she looked gorgeous.

SorenLorensen · 24/02/2008 21:00

It was better than Fergie's dress. Didn't she have their initials embroidered into the train? Naffola!

expatinscotland · 24/02/2008 21:01

Oooo, we all adored her dress, Aitch! It was such a huge secret and she just looked such an amazing bride, waving and smiling at the crowds as her carriage rode past, and with her father walking her up the aisle. I don't know how he couldn't have just melted at such a site, she looked so nervous and young.

But then, he was no Mr. Rochester .

expatinscotland · 24/02/2008 21:03

I thought she looked fab after having the baby, too! My gran was practically extendign her arm to the TV, convinced she was going to fall over. We said, 'Gran, she's only 21!' She reminded my mother that she was only 20 when she had Mama, but what a scandal it would have been had she been walking around outside the lying-in hospital just a day after having a baby!

AitchTwoOh · 24/02/2008 21:06

i think fergie's dress was better than di's, but the initials were BAD, weren't they?

my grandma actually cried when they got married, she was really upset for lady di. she was the telephone operator for the switchboard between Buck Palace and Balmoral so had to listen into the convos around the abdication etc, so i think she felt like she had some insight into how the royal family work. ie, that they are utter bastards.

AitchTwoOh · 24/02/2008 21:07

apparently the queen mum, for example, Was Not as nice as everyone thinks. FAR from it.

expatinscotland · 24/02/2008 21:19

Diana's nanny went on record and said they took a warm, loving and sweet girl and turned her into a basket case.

Nah, I preferred her dress to Fergie's.

I was shocked to learn the Queen Mum wasn't really Scottish.

I read it on a plaque outside her Memorial Garden in the Botanics at Edinburgh.

I suppose it's true. Don't know much about her.

But has anyone read 'Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire' by Amanda Foreman?

Well-researched and very interesting. Georgiana was a Spencer, too. Well, so was Winton Churchill-Spencer.

No matter what one will say about Kate Middleton, and I hope the marriage is happy if it comes to pass, as you do for anyone, but she's no Diana.

Don't think we'll see a bride like Diana any time soon.

AitchTwoOh · 24/02/2008 21:22

queen mum's another one that's rumoured to be illegitimate. i saw a doco on georgiana, some very interesting parallels. and if Kate's no DIana that can only be a good thing, imo. no one needs to be served up like that again.

expatinscotland · 24/02/2008 21:24

I remember being pea green with envy at the flower girls and junior bridesmaids!

All this just brings back good childhood memories for me [waxes a bit nostalgic].

My sister and cousins and I just so excited.

There was this 'new' thing called 'Jiffy Pop' out, it was a sort of aluminium pan with the popcorn kernels and oil already in it, and you just put it on the hob and shook it and the foil on top expanded as the kernels popped.

Well, we simply had to have it for the wedding, my father rolled his eyes and chuckled, but bought us three of them.

He couldn't believe we were getting up so early to watch a wedding.

Too right!

No way we were missing that!

AitchTwoOh · 24/02/2008 21:26

but you can't really look at the dress through adult eyes and think that it did anything for her? it was a total disaster. (although remember the black strapless emmanuelle that she wore to the opera, that was lovely.)

expatinscotland · 24/02/2008 21:28

It's a very well-researched and well-written book, Aitch. I'm not much for biographies, but that was a good one. Also 'Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox' - it's their letters to one another, mostly.

Again, many illegitimates.

But I suppose such was the norm, no birth control and women being married off like cattle.

Mary, Queen of Scots was close to her two illegitimate half brothers, the Earl Moray and the Earl Atholl (now a duchy). Her father publicly acknowledged fathering them, and when you see their portraits there's really no mistaking it.

expatinscotland · 24/02/2008 21:31

It was still shocking how the Queen Mum's children went and sold all her personal stuff!

I cannot imagine doing that with my gran's and mother's things. Not for any amount of money.

bookwormmum · 24/02/2008 21:31

I don't remember the wedding per se - probably went out and played in the garden rather watch a wedding - but I was given the commorative (sp) 'his and her' booksd detailing their family trees (probably still go them somewhere) and later on, I had one of those click and view cameras with pictures of the wedding on. My dd now plays with it. I must ask her if she knows who they are .

expatinscotland · 24/02/2008 21:32

The other thing is, there are still so many letters they all wrote to each other.

You think these folk would have had the sense to know when to make good use of a fire, wouldn't you?

God, I'd burned far less.

bookwormmum · 24/02/2008 21:32

Oh yes, we also had a street party to celebrate a la 1945-style .

expatinscotland · 24/02/2008 21:33

Those crowds, bookworm! OMG, can you imagine being barely 20 and facing such immense crowds?!

berolina · 24/02/2008 21:36

I had an imitation of the dress for my Sindy doll. Loved it.

I was four in 1981. Remember a street party and a blue plastic mug we were given at school or nursery or whatever I was at at that point. I loved that mug and used it for years.

Do people still have street parties?

expatinscotland · 24/02/2008 21:37

I'm old.

PurlyQueen · 24/02/2008 21:39

I was nine and I remember being very jealous of the striped periscopes that people had in the crowds lining the wedding procession.

She should have married Prince Andrew - they seemed much better matched.

bookwormmum · 24/02/2008 21:40

When I was 20, there was no way you'd have got me into a wedding dress, least of all one that needed a bloody good ironing . I would have probably run away screaming before I got to St Paul's in the carriage.

Fergie's dress should be been confiscated by the fashion police. Typical mid-80s ott. The worrying thing is that women buy (or bought) copies of these dresses

expatinscotland · 24/02/2008 21:43

Didn't Fergie's dress also have anchor patterns sewn into it?

Oh.My.Gawd.

She should have been born American, ffs.

AitchTwoOh · 24/02/2008 21:44

yes, but at least it fitted her, ikwim?

AitchTwoOh · 24/02/2008 21:45

unlike poor dumpy diana, who looked BAD. despite being 5 10 or so and leggy and glam.