Talks about reconciliation 2

[bluegreygreen]

I've never started a thread here before, but I thought some people might be interested in this take on the story by a PR podcast I listened to yesterday (started listening to this podcast as I know very little about PR!).

It would be good to know if any of the resident PR people agree.

When It Hits The Fan: A Right Royal Whodunnit

Why then from a mountain of posts that frankly are far more critical, did you feel my particularly tame post was “ unnecessarily unpleasant “ ?
do explain?
because patterns form and people do notice.

Oh yeah. It's not even that strange either: we have an innate instinct to copy each other cos back in cro magnon days that's how we would've survived. The human is one of the very few mammals stupid enough to walk around with our delicate, soft abdomen exposed to any waiting predator. The herd thing is the compensation that enabled us to claw our way to the top of the evolutionary pile :-). Someone's running? Shit, must be a woolly mammoth! Quick! Let's ALL start running!

The Children's Crusade is a good historical example of mass hysteria. The Peasants Revolt started with isolated attacks on tax collectors in Kent before snowballing - Wat Tyler and Jack Straw came later (if the latter existed at all) and John Ball, who's often also credited, was actually in prison at the time.

Teenage girls seem especially vulnerable to mass hysteria, it's thought because of their higher ability for empathy and aptitude for rumination, untempered by the maturity of life experience. There's a school of thought that this may be why eating disorders are often so rampant in girls' boarding schools. Lisa Littman attributed ROGD to this phenom, too.

My favourite historical example is the Dancing Plague of 1518. It's a bit creepy though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518

I remember when Diana died. My initial emotions were shock, soon to be replaced by resentment that she'd gone and died on a Sunday and I'd have to cancel my plans and go to work. I was perfectly calm and composed, though. However, 14 hours of helping clients compose virtue-signalling public statements, against the backdrop of 24/7 news blaring out (the Americans, when they came on air, were even worse if anything) and I was an tearful, overwrought nervous wreck.

I've only just read this. How interesting.

I wonder what William would think of the trashing of his Mother on this thread. Not a lot I imagine.

I imagine he’s rather more concerned with his brother continuing to use her for publicity!

Are you really wondering that? What William would think about an exchange of views between strangers? How odd!

Indeed. I think he would hate it.

I hope the deliberately negative narrative about Diana will change once more when he takes the throne.

He might be able to understand that our parents are not perfect and must have been gossipped about now and again, anywhere, and that it is not strange for people to consider his mother's and his brother's relationships with the press, and a certain similarity
.
I imagine that he is very aware that members of his family are trashed on SM all the time.

From what William said in a statement about the Panorama programme and in a programme called something like 'The princes and the press' I think he understands what happens.
There are many people who had one or two parents who were adulterous and they know that other folk will speak critically of them.

Man, I'm already on the naughty bench for 'bringing MN into disrepute' on another thread because I believe that the Salt Path woman is a thief. So giving my recollections about the 90s perception of St Di won't make any difference.

The only reason there is any narrative about Diana is because Harry keeps raking her up. Most of the world is happy to leave her memory be. But sanctifying her here is bound to trigger a response, given what subsequently came to light about her private life.

typo fixed

Because you said the following:

it seems his cosplaying of his mother has extended to him believing that he is as beloved as his mother was

I do think the cosplaying comment was unnecessarily unpleasant because 1. I’m sure that Harry would much prefer it if his mother were alive and 2. it’s both disrespectful and malign to assume you know why Harry chose to support the same causes that she did.

Again it’s supposition and unpleasant supposition at that.

because patterns form and people do notice

^^ I suggest that you explain this comment to Mumsnet HQ because it sounds mildly threatening like you are the thread bouncer or something?

Again, it’s unnecessarily unpleasant when I am expressing an opinion that differs from yours on a public sm site.

I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business how Harry chooses to remember or commemorate his dead mother.

But I am pretty certain that it would be very convenient indeed for certain main players in the current RF if her name was never mentioned again.

Edited to add: no one is sanctifying her here. But phrases like “raking her up” are deliberately goady and unpleasant.

He took a camera crew with him and released the pictures to the world's press! It is public and intended to be. Try to make SOME sense, please.

It’s not nasty to refuse to whitewash history.

There is a cohort of people who wish to maintain a false narrative about Diana that she was universally loved and held in high esteem by the public at the time of her death.

That is not true.

Her passing was sad, untimely and devastating for her children, but she wasn’t “The People’s Princess” at that time. It was a moniker given to her
by Tony Blair (then Prime Minister) in his reaction statement to the news she had died that was then seized upon by the press.

Diana was (like us all) a complex person. She was capable of great kindness and often willing to use her fame to help others and causes she cared deeply about. She was also capable of feeling and acting out on deep paranoia, jealously and hurt. Her personal life was fraught with affairs which ended other’s marriages (to the point of stalking) and she was known for cutting people off for perceived slights. She lived a very rarified life and was married very young into a family where she struggled to be loved and accepted for who she was having grown up in a family that can be described legitimately as dysfunctional as well.

Personally I think we do her a disservice by not remembering the person she was, but a sanctified version of that.

Not sure it’s trashing ; it’s stating some facts ! Diana had numerous affairs including with married men . She was stalking at least one of them so much that the police were involved . William watched the Bashir interview with his housemaster then refused to speak to his mother on the phone .
Remember it was William who had to push tissues under the bathroom door when she was sobbing .
I reckon William understands that- like the rest of us- his mother wasn’t perfect . That he loved her is not in doubt but at least he is not making money from her !

Diana was more of less a beautiful memory to most of us until Harry started using her memory as a human shield and excuse for all his own bad behaviour. Including using the Bashir interview in his Netflix doc, that William and Charles Spencer had explicitly asked not to be shown again, due to the nefarious means employed by Bashir in obtaining it and the way he fueled her paranoia - that resulted in her getting rid of her palace security detail.

William was "parentified" by his mother (this is well documented) and unfairly used by her as a shoulder to cry on. Of all people, he would be well aware of her flaws intimately. Nobody is telling him anything he didn't know about her from first hand experience. She was his mum and he no doubt loves her unconditionally while still accepting her flaws.

What William's probably more unhappy about, more than an honest discourse of his mother, is his extremely dishonest brother using her memory at every given opportunity, in order to receive reflected glory and sympathy for himself. Because it is Harry's actions and constant name checking of his mother that has re-opened the book on her - the beautiful memory is being re-assessed thanks to her youngest son.

As someone who decided to leave London during the Diana floodgates, because it became impossible to get any work done so I decided to take leave instead, it's actually good to remember that history has been re-written quite significantly post her death. She was not exactly vilified before it, but neither was she universally beloved, and hardly anyone I know with a modicum of sense believed in the Saint Diana fairytale, either before or afterwards.

Just noticed I have x- posted with @BreadInCaptivity ! Sorry .

X posted with @BreadInCaptivity and @Mylovelygreendress excellent posts.

It’s undeniable that Harry is stuck on his mother’s untimely passing. The enormous upheaval he’s put himself through recently, plus the estrangement from his family, no doubt exacerbate things. And with Meghan, who receives so much attention and most of it negative, he’s stuck in a vicious cycle because the more criticism she receives the more compelled he is to “protect” her so he doesn’t lose her the way he thinks he lost his mother. She “proves” a self-fulfilling prophecy he feels himself the victim of, even if he does wrap it up in altruism or dragon-slaying.

It’s very sad. Because he has nothing of his own (nothing other than what I believe is a genuine interest in the sort of service that suits him), and nobody on his side/not out for themselves, he’s doomed to tragedy.

Again, no need to be rude and I don’t understand what you mean?

Harry took a camera crew with him in collaboration with The Halo Trust at a symbolic moment when, according to the NY Times;

“countries are beginning to break away from the international anti-land mine treaty drawn up in the months after Diana’s visit”

https://www.halotrust.org/news/prince-harry-brings-smiles-to-kids-safety-class-as-he-revisits-angolas-minefields/

He didn't need to be filmed walking through the minefield, exactly as his mother had done.
There are other ways of supporting this charity.

I suspect William knows full well just how damaged his mum was and that people who are old enough to have lived through the Diana years will talk about her. Nothing said here has been made up and I’m pretty sure William is aware of things that never made the press. People speak of what they were doing when Kennedy was shot and for many of us the day Diana died was our moment we’ll never forget. I cried when I heard on the news she’d passed away, as did my husband, but she did towards the end of her life have a very public unfortunate side to her that we also remember.

But no one believes in the “Saint Diana” fairytale! Diana didn’t believe it. At best it was a press construction so they could beat her down with it later.

And absolutely one is sanctifying her on this thread.

The only reason monarchists bring it up repeatedly is so they can say “but she wasn’t a saint” when no one is saying that!

I see it time and time again on here!

It’s interesting and salutory to look at the recent past and try to learn from it. This article shows that D’s image leading up to her tragic death was very different to what it is now (with some people). I remember myself thinking’What is she playing at with that sleazy man?’ when the press was full of photos of her with Dodi in the Med. Then after she was killed there was a kind of collective guilt about the way the press had treated her (or were perceived to have treated her) and since then, she’s almost been sanctified!

it’s a really complex subject and I’m sure her popularity was partly due to people who saw her as being in opposition to the RF - all helped by the conspiracy theories and her brother’s funeral oration.

So, in answer, I’d say that of course such things are of interest to anyone fascinated by history.

Harry does !