What would the coronation be like if Diana had lived?

[Bouledeneige]

I know this is a very strange question - but I woke up this morning wondering about it. I have absolutely no idea why. I am not in the least bit interested in the coronation.

So I went back to what might have happened if she lived. Maybe she would have married Dodi and had a baby but it then would have broken up as she realised the expectations of a Fayed wife. Behind closed doors - seen but not heard. Then maybe a series of relationships with property barons, celebs and euro riche. Summers spent lounging on mediterranean yachts, winters in Verbier and Turks and Caicos, maybe some Hollywood and Miami hols.

Increasingly the boys would've been channelled into university, the armed forces, marriage and children - increasingly fenced in by royal convention and duty. That awkward Ex thing at graduations and passings outs, marriages and christenings..... And then the Coronation....

I think she'd have exited the country for the weekend's ceremonies and spectacle - and instead been papped partying on a sail boat in the WhitSundays with a bunch of friends and a handsome younger man.

And maybe not. Maybe a life like Princess Margaret... or maybe a happy ever after. What do you think?

I can't believe I even started thinking this way. Not even sure I will take any notice at all of the Coronation.

She was a victim at the start of her adult life but by the end she was the survivor/rebel/making up for lost time. It would have been worse if she had suffered in silence and let them shag on without speaking out and died without telling her story.

charles was also a victim of the scheming family he was born into

1981 he had to marry a virgin
ridiculous

He was ancient in comparison. If he could not stand up to it in his thirties then he is a spineless git who is not a good choice for a king (not that we have a choice).

I think it would have been difficult for Charles to marry if she were alive.
But who knows? People seem to beleive whatever the Daily Mail tells them to believe.

You've heard of Queen Caroline?

Maybe the wait was mainly to do with rehabilitating Milla's reputation. They managed to work with the right people to transform her from a Jilly Cooper character to kind, bookish and glamourous.

Reading with intrig

There is no way she'd have married summer fling Dodi but equally she'd never have married an impecunious peasant for love -whatever love means- either.

She'd have found some obscure billionaire to sponge offpartner, hand-bagged Harold (she was all for Willy copping the crown) and dodged the coronation while getting deliberately papped on a glamourous beach.

Not sure Will or Harry would be much better off, having their Mum around would potentially improved things and Harry might not have a chip on his shoulder, but that could be offset by the hounding of his mother and her private life. I strongly suspect their mental health would be worse, as following Diana's death their privacy was much better protected than when she was alive

i can’t see how this poster has ever seen up close what it does to young children when their mum dies. It is terribly sad, they have to accept something that is far beyond their years to really comprehend, and it changes them forever.

i don't think charles would have married camilla at all - think it would have been impossible PR to overcome. He'd remarry someone wiser and untainted by affairs and scandal, with camilla maybe still in background

i think diana would have a number of further divorces and flings with unsuitable men in between. Still trying to overshadow charles and probably succeeding. She's still do good for charity

she'd be a nightmare MIL and possibly an overbearing grandparent causing friction with the wives. I don't think it would have been kate and meghan. William maybe more off the rails than harry as well given his relationship with diana as a confidante rather than parent child so he may have gone for someone more like meghan causing a lot of friction between MIL and DIL

Harry probably married someone more like himself

How do you know she'd be a nightmare MIL?

well i don't of course - just surmising like everyone else on the thread

Much the same but the Duchess of York would have had someone to hang out with or Meghan someone to amplify her photos.

Who cares? She died 25 years ago, get over it.

I think she would be living near Santa Barbara somewhere having married an humongous LT rich older billionaire (for love but also for protection from the media, like Jackie O) , she’d have founded a children’s charity, be patron of a pioneering hospital, and probably would have continued to support some interesting arts projects in ballet and opera.

I care.

I think it was hugely unjust that she ended up as collateral damage in the whole sorry saga.

He was 32 when he got engaged to 19 year old Diana - creepy. He made his vows in the knowledge that he would continue to commit adultery.

There's no way she and her family didn't know what the deal was.

What a horrible to say!! No mum is perfect but she loved her boys and theiy loved.

That doesn’t necessarily make her a good mother though. Paula Yates loved her girls, then overdosed on heroin when her youngest was in the house. People can live their children and still make questionable parenting choices.

I don’t know if it was the ‘virgin’ stuff. As another poster said elsewhere, it was probably more about not having any previous boyfriends that could come out of the woodwork and sell stories. There was plenty of appetite for the salacious in the early 80s. They still had ‘page 3 girls’ I think.

Charles really should have married an older woman with whom he had more in common. It is strange that his family could not see that.

Unquestionably her family knew - particularly her grandmother - but I don’t think anyone remembered to tell her.

I won’t be watching either. It was fun watching all of the pomp and ceremony before it was tainted.

But this coronation .. eugh. We know far more about these two than we’d like to. At least I do. I just cannot get past the tampon thing. Camilla’s ambition has always been laid-bare to see and I think it’s distasteful.

I like to think Diana would have made life as difficult for Charles during the coronation as he made her life.

Don’t even get me started on being told to refer to Camilla as Queen rather than Queen Consort. How dare they tell us how to feel.

Wasn’t it found by the coroner that Paula was not a habitual user of heroin and it was why she died? Depression and a bad decision does not make a bad mother. Paula needed help. The father of her last child had died not long before in pretty awful circumstances. It was all very sad. Lots of people fuck up in life, but often they get a second chance - Paula did not. It did not make her ‘bad’ in anyway, in my opinion. It just made her a sad person who was dealing with something that was too much for her.

True, ultimately her life was very sad. But also her death meant she's basically been elevated to sainthood.

LadyPen - none of us have got a life or we wouldn't be posting on here!