For those of you old enough...

[sheworemellowyellow]

...was the Diana/Fergie thing as mental in the media and with the public as MN is mental about Meghan/Kate/everyone else these days?

I was a young teen and paid zero attention to the RF in the 80s. Accounting for a certain amount of frenzy due to the ease of posting on social media versus drumming up chat by way of in-person chatting, and also accounting for the near-total accessibility of online media especially tabloids, did people take these insanely fervently held anti/pro Diana/Fergie sides like they do with Meghan and Kate?

Just done one of my regular name-changes, I've had my arse handed to me on the RF forum plenty of times by the usual suspects. Have been busy with life for a while, just come back to this board and am open-mouthed by how sycophantic/defensive/accusatory/cynical some posts are. Trying to work out WHY people care so much! Is this new? Is this just the royal family wielding its influence? Was it always thus?

Pretty much, yes. Although there was no internet so no social media: mumsnet, Facebook, TikTok, whatever so gossip/news didn't spread as quickly. And no mobile phones to take pics that could be instantly viewed and published across the world.
It was weekly magazines like Woman's Weekly, Hello etc.

No - because there was no social media.

I remember being stunned by the faux national grief about Diana. People who had never met her openly crying, queues of people waiting to sign the book of condolence in Tescos, plastic wrapped flowers everywhere.

It was bonkers.

Interesting. And did people hold onto Diana or Fergie (whichever "side" they were on) as a totem of their personal beliefs, like they seem to with Kate and Meghan?

Is this down to a growing Republican sentiment? Times of austerity and growing wealth disparity? Something else that also existed in the 80s and 90s?

@NeverTrustAPoliceman yes the “grief” over Di was insane.

This I do remember. Was it faux grief? Or were people actually mourning "something"? I can't put my finger on what it is that people care about so much.

@sheworemellowyellow i don’t recall that being the case but then I came from a staunchly Republican family who weren’t interested in any of it!

i think it was slightly different in that D&S got on so there wasn't that side to it. I think its all got more in common with Mrs Simpson.

So you think it's the "scandal" aspect that fires people up?

Do you think if there were no scandal there wouldn't be this much fervour?

I'm too old old enough to remember it distinctly. The funeral and the procession was actually very moving, because it was a tragedy as opposed to old age, and having lost a sibling in the same way, it was very moving for me. A life cut tragically short.

However, there being no social media made a huge difference.

The worst I remember with Diana and Sarah and getting on (or not) was one of them saying they borrowed a pair of shoes from the other and she got verrucas from wearing the shoes! That was a big story 😂

I was a teenager during the Diana & Fergie years. I read the tabloids and Woman/Woman's Own magazines. Originally Fergie was seen as a breath of fresh air. After the perfectly groomed tall and elegant Diana, she seemed more lively and relatable. She then made one too many gaffes, found it hard to lose her pregnancy weight and found the press a lot more critical. I haven't found the press coverage of Meghan any harsher than that of Fergie. Yes, I am NOT saying that it is right,, but Meghan has not been treated any worse than Fergie was. Both women lacked judgement in their role. Both were older than their respective sisters in law when they entered royal life so had been used to independence and success on their own terms.(Fergie worked in publishing and continued her career in the early days of her marriage). This independence would obviously make them less malleable than Diana & Kate. Neither of them have/had the model figures of Diana/Kate too so they were came out poorly in comparisons there too. Again, I am NOT condoning the pitting against of sisters in law, but to show that in my opinion the comparison between both pairs of women was very similar.

Yes, for sure an element of the public's reaction to Diana's death must have been that it was the untimely death of a mother of young children, and of a member of the royal family (world-famous Princess Diana no less), and that it was by way of an out-of-the-blue car accident. A shock, and a sad thing whoever Diana may or may not have been.

Before then, though. Were people so vested in defending Diana or Fergie to their friends/family? Or so vested in their criticism of them?

There's an edge to the feelings Kate and Meghan evoke in the public, some people take their allegiance so personally and deeply. Was that the case with Diana and Fergie? Is it as simple as the Royal Family being a mirror the nation holds up to itself? Or is it something about the individuals themselves that makes some people feel so deeply about women we've never known actually known the entire truth about?

Like Housewife2010 I was a teen during the Diana/Fergie years and the media were vile. Constant criticism of the way Fergie walked, talked, her fashion sense (or lack of), her enthusiasm - she waved wrong, she gushed too much etc etc. And then the nicknames - Duchess of Pork because she wasn't as tall and skinny as Diana! If social media had been around it would have been so much worse. The media also tried to force a divide between the two ladies who were, I believe, good friends! Sophie also came in for severe personality bashings and criticisms when she started seeing Edward. The media are just horrible.

I too don't believe Meghan (or Kate) have been treated any worse that Fergie and Sophie but it doesn't mean I think it was right either in the 80s, 90s or 2010s!

Before then, though. Were people so vested in defending Diana or Fergie to their friends/family? Or so vested in their criticism of them?

No, is my answer to that. But it was because of social media and having to buy a newspaper to get the latest on Diana and Sarah. So... for instance... Sarah was OK but I wasn't a huge fan, and I found the playing to the crowd on the balcony with the kiss and trying to get the crowds to cheer them more... a bit crass. But there was nowhere for me to say that except to my family who don't listen to me at the best of times

If there had been social media I think the internet would have melted with memes of Fergie's toe-sucking antics. Or if it hadn't, Tampongate the following year would have combusted it once and for all.

There weren't platforms for ordinary folk to discuss this sort of thing with people outside their friends and family, so you didn't tend to get people of extreme opinions coming to blows and fuelling debate.

There was definitely a thing with the papers Di tall slender, fashion icon, and doing serious things like highlighting Aids and mine fields.
Fergie up for a laughs but also Duchess of Pork, doesn't do anything serious. Writes kids books about Budgie the Helicopter

The grief around Diana’s death, I think was just something people could relate to, a young mum, just 36 leaving two kids behind, and the ordinariness of her death.

She didn't die doing anything extraordinary like walking across a mine field, she was travelling in a car. Something most of us do daily.

The press slaughtered Fergie for her weight problems, her "interesting" fashion sense and of course the toe sucking and the fake sheik sting. I did feel sorry for her, the way she was treated by the RF, well mainly Prince Philip who refused to be in the same room as her.
But she soldiered on, paid off her considerable debts, brought up 2 nice daughters and is still friends with her ex.
She and Diana used to be close but fell out when Fergie claimed that she wore a pair of Diana's shoes which gave her verrucas .
Sadly Diana died with them still not speaking.
Oh and also the outpouring of grief when Diana died was crazy!!

This is all so interesting.

So, when you think about RF members like Princess Anne who got relatively little flack, and then to members like Charles and Camilla who got a lot of flack, the way they now come across as feeling towards the public and the media...it's quite interesting really.

It's ostensibly easier for Anne to be generous of spirit as she got a relatively smooth ride, and yet she comes across as far more haughty and imperial than her brother or Camilla. Charles and Camilla, you'd think, might feel that for all the bashing they've had they're now entitled to retreat to their privileged cocoon of royalty - and yet they seem to positively relish interaction with the public and seem to have a not-outright-antagonistic relationship with the press (I only remember the under-his-breath comment about Nicholas Witchell from Charles).

But she soldiered on, paid off her considerable debts

Yes she did. But let's not forget that some of her debts were paid off by Epstein. She did have bad judgement. Like her husband

I well remember the Fergie vv Diana comparisons, it was very unpleasant.
Diana’s death and the public reaction, while obviously tragic, was hysteria whipped up by the press and television.
i honestly couldn’t understand all the weeping and wailing at all. I still don’t know what the underlying reason for it was other than to show Charles in as bad a light as possible.

Fergie used to be absolutely slated in the press for just about anything. I think it may have been worse than what has been written about Megan as they really didn’t seem to hold back on anything in the press back then.

@LakeTiticaca i didn’t know that about Phillip! He really was a nasty bastard 🙄.

@Mistymoonsinastarrysky I think people got caught up in the insanity. Imagine how much worse it would have been nowadays 😬

The press used to compare 'elegant Diana' to 'clumsy Fergie' but I don't recall them saying that there was a feud between them as they quite clearly got on well and were good friends.