BBC Martin Bashir - Diana shocked.

[justasking111]

The more that comes out about the panorama interview and the way things were invented/forged. Bank statements, telephone records, stories about the family to encourage Diana to talk to Bashir. I just cannot believe what is emerging from this, things that would have influenced me if I had been Diana and no-one verified it independently.

Tony Blair had nothing to do with arranging Diana’s funeral!! Or anyone else outside the Royal Household. The RF were heartless in making young children walk behind their mother’s coffin. But they seem to like doing it. Earl Spencer joined in too. They don’t understand children and cannot manage their view of duty and what’s reasonable.

I would greatly prefer to see a media blackout. Stop all reporting on them. Gossip, mental health, visits and definitely cut out the vast air miles of the media entourage going abroad with them. I think the RF could usefully “turn up and shut up”.

I meant to add: Earl Spencer didn’t care about W and H either. Look at his numerous disastrous relationships.

In the past, Harry has said he was glad to walk behind the cortege for Diana's funeral.
According to reports, he was undecided, until Prince Philip said he would walk as well.
If Harry hadn't, he would now probably be saying he was not allowed to.
I am sure the RF did what they thought was right at the time.
I actually thought the funeral was arranged in collaboration with Charles Spencer (her brother)

@PresentingPercy that is factually incorrect- the funeral was planned by a committee including representatives from the government

Yes, the funeral was arranged by a committee which include members of the RF, the Spencer family and the government. By all accounts it was William who did not want to walk behind the coffin, not Harry.

I think the government would not have planned the details which were based on those rehearsed for the Queen Mother. According to Alaister Campbell, the government were concerned about security. Not ceremonial duties of soldiers and who was behind the coffin. They did think Charles might be attacked though so were fretting about that. Tony Blair is not responsible for what the princes had to endure.

I once saw some old news footage in which the Queen and Prince Philip returned home from a royal tour after leaving their children for six months. A mere part of the welcome party, the unsmiling five-year-old Prince Charles waits dutifully – simply required to shake his mother’s hand. Anyone claiming this was entirely normal “in those days” has royal brain worms.
My FIL used to shake my children's hands and my DH reported that he would get a handshake when he returned from boarding school. We are younger than Prince Charles by a long margin! When my beloved Dad died, my MIL said to my son 'Shake your Grandad's hand. After all, he's the only one you've got now.' The Royal Family aren't alone in being distant parents!

An article about Martin Bashir. I hadn't realised Diana had maintained a close relationship with MB and his family after the interview. She wrote him a gushing letter the day after.

Martin Bashir interview: a broken man who can’t quite admit he wronged Diana.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/682934a8-bb1b-11eb-8a71-bc144e6a30f1?shareToken=934b9b5805fc9c03617063e5b65b47511_

This is an account of the conference call:
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/prince-philip-tony-blair-alastair-campbell-princess-diana-funeral-prince-william-prince-harry-a7903186.html

[quote smilesy]This is an account of the conference call:
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/prince-philip-tony-blair-alastair-campbell-princess-diana-funeral-prince-william-prince-harry-a7903186.html[/quote]
That is awful.

The Royals had to be seen to be mourning in public?

Bloody hell!

I think that the "fuck off" should have stood!

So it was a PR exercise?

Of course if the boys wanted to do it then fine for their father & GF to support them to.
But if they didn't want to, it nothing should have been thought of that.

At the time, if you were alive then, there was concern that the Queen was in Scotland. I couldn’t have cared less, but a lot of people felt she was remote from London and not interested in what people were feeling. The outpouring of grief was over the top and actually quite unusual for the Brits. Only similar to Kennedy dying I think. So Tony Blair trued to persuade the Queen to come to London.

At the time, vast mountains of flowers had been building up outside Kensington Palace in particular. The Queen decided it was better to meet the public in a controlled way. I felt it was a huge mistake to involve William and Harry. Charles just wasn’t liked but the Queen was trying to bridge the gap between seeming uncaring and remote by coming to London as opposed to staying in her holiday home hundreds of miles away. You might think it’s PR but it was also pragmatic.

I remember the headline "Show us you care ma'am" which, in retrospect, is dreadful and conveniently shifted the blame from the media (who'd been publishing the most awful stories about Diana up until her death) to the Queen.

At the time, if you were alive then, there was concern that the Queen was in Scotland. I couldn’t have cared less, but a lot of people felt she was remote from London and not interested in what people were feeling. The outpouring of grief was over the top and actually quite unusual for the Brits.

Yes, precisely this. It was creepy.

As well as the ‘show us you care, ma’am’ headline that Annunziata quotes, above, there was ‘WHERE IS OUR QUEEN? WHERE IS HER FLAG?”. Because she had to be forced to show people that she cared about them and their drama queening over the death of somebody they had never met.

I’m no royalist, but I found it chilling. All the more so because it seemed that only a minority of people shared this strange compulsion to ostentatiously grieve and force everyone else to do the same.

Two of my dimmer female relations were enthusiastic participants. Queueing up at a cathedral that Diana had never visited to sign those ludicrous books of condolence. Into which they poured out their own disappointments, because that was what the Diana grief madness was all about: it was inherently self-centred. Crying in the queue with strangers and having a wonderful time revelling in the idea that now the world had to pay attention to them and their petty grievances, because of the new ‘national mood’. It was bizarre.

Is it any wonder the Dukes are confused and lash out at anyone who they see dents their mother’s aura? It’s been allowed to grow and there’s too few people using common sense in all of this.

Diana would have talked to someone on camera. Bashir was manipulate and stupid but the BBC was a natural home for a Diana interview. A trusted news journalist would have been better. However journalists were in camps and no one wanted to upset Charles.

"Yes, precisely this. It was creepy."

Almost cult like!

I shudder to think what would have happened if there had been a private family funeral.

Well that letter from Diana has probably been mocked up like the other stuff you know...

@FrozenVag

Well that letter from Diana has probably been mocked up like the other stuff you know...

It’s probably real, but it was dated very shortly after the programme itself, so before she had had time to realise what he had done, or even reflect much.

A two sentence waiver, presumably written at the request of the conman, when the victim was still in the immediate thrall of the conman doesn’t really count for much, as Lord Dyson himself apparently concluded.

The fact that the BBC ever relied on it as a get out of jail free card, is really quite worrying.

@AnnunciataZ

I remember the headline "Show us you care ma'am" which, in retrospect, is dreadful and conveniently shifted the blame from the media (who'd been publishing the most awful stories about Diana up until her death) to the Queen.

My view is that the seesaw approach was wrong at both ends. By which I mean, the Queen saying nothing for days as the country worked Itself into a fever pitch of grief wasn't helpful, but then sending the boys out in public was too far the other way. IMO if the Queen had made a statement earlier, expressing sorrow and saying the boys would remain in Scotland away from the public to protect them, people would have understood and there would have been something out therapy. The Queen has at times over the years been slow to realise the strength of public opinion (Aberfan, Windsor Castle fire) and this was one of those occasions - but for me, one where she as monarch should have taken the lead and come out herself to make a speech or statement earlier. Not left it and then put William and Harry in front of emotional crowds.

@FrozenVag

Well that letter from Diana has probably been mocked up like the other stuff you know...

Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised. Martin Bashir arranged for forged bank statements and a forged receipt for Tiggy Legge Bourke’s abortion, ffs. That is so creepy and weird - even contemplating doing that is vile.

It’s worth remembering that HMTQ sent the two boys off to church in the public glare the morning of Diana’s death announcement whilst she herself did not go to church in the Sunday when The Queen Mother died. Apparently the boys were confused and asked if their mother really had died as there were no prayers for Diana that Sunday and they were then kept in their Balmoral rooms out of the way, with no one referring to Diana at all.

www.rd.com/article/princess-diana-name-banned-church/ This is from the Readers Digest which I would not call bottom feeding press.

William now says that that particular church service gave him comfort but the photos of them in the car looking completely stunned were awful. I’ve always asked why HM did that.

Well that letter from Diana has probably been mocked up like the other stuff you know...

Possibly, yes, but I think it was reported that William confirmed it to be her handwriting? (Which admittedly doesn't guarantee it wasn't forged)
Personally I'm more interested in how Bashir got her to write it, but he's not saying and the author's dead so we may never know

About the "church service" though ... wasn't it said that Diana's name was never even mentioned throughout it? Which seems a bit odd if true

If you are talking about her funeral: of course her name was mentioned. What other service could you mean? Interestingly at the time, Earl Spencer took a swipe at the RF as well as referring to her being hunted. Not a word about her being manipulated and the set up of her interview even though he was involved and appeared to lap up what was shown to him too.

Of course we are not talking about her funeral! We are talking about the church service at the RF’s local church at Balmoral on Sunday 31 August 1997.

😖

Yes it’s true about the church service. W’s remarks yesterday suggested to me that the lack of reference about his dm didn’t upset him.