Charles Spencer to publish memoir of Diana

[OccasionalHope]

Could be interesting.

Harry is too dim to understand what effect his book had on his reputation.

You probably had to be there, as they say. My apologies if you were! Diana was an unprecedented breath of fresh air in a stuffed shirt, stagnated, out of touch and out of reach royal family that might as well have been from the feudal past. She was also incredibly beautiful which the RF aren't particularly, so there's that. Not that it should count, but like it or not it does. And she was young (she had only just turned 20 when she married Charlie). People, especially the young, were pretty sick of the RF at the time and opinion was at an all time low (for then) and she genuinely had a mission to the take the RF to the people and to drag it screaming into the 20th century, and in many ways she succeeded. She also devoted a huge amount of her personal time (much of it behind the scenes) to charities that were not on the RF's radar and that the establishment highly disapproved of and pressured her to stop. It's true she wasn't an academic whizz kid but the RF themselves aren't exactly known to be the sharpest knives in the drawer either. As for making questionable choices as a mother, the RF are well known to have made very bad choices with their children over the decades. Charles himself has whined openly about his very damaging childhood on several occasions. Diana actually flew in the face of royal tradition with her boys' upbringing on many levels, which again made her terribly unpopular with the RF and the establishment in general. Was she troubled. Oh yes. But much of that is hardly bloody surprising. Was she a saint, of course not. She was a young woman.

Yes, as a pp ;has said - her grandmother, Lady Fermoy, and the Queen Mother were best mates and they definitely (more than) encouraged the match. It was approaching an arranged marriage really.

The problem was that Charles had reached the ripe old age of 33 (imagine!). Times were different then (I mean, on here you get people calling Harry and Meghan at young couple in their early/mid 40s) but in those days it was consdiered that he should have found a wife by that time. The sticking point that while Charles really did have gorgeous, pouting beauties after him (honestly!) in those days, a future queen HAD to be a virgin. Diana at 19 had no ''past', yet she had to undergo a gynae examination to confirm her virginity.

I think I've read that Diana did have a crush on Prince Charles in her teens, so she clearly did fancy him at some point. Whether that feeling was ever seriously reciprocated by him, who knows?

The whole thing was a disaster for both these young/youngish people, trapped in the archaic conventions prevalent at the time. I feel sorry for both of them.

I honestly think he is.

That's no excuse, but it does explain why he thinks he has a chance to just pretend the last 6 years didn't happen and he can come back and be fun Prince Harry again. Having conspired in the international character assassination of his nearest and dearest!!!

'But interesting to see whether ES gets markled. Will HAM come out for or against in advance, or will they wait and see how it’s received before deciding. Feels like it’s another high profile spat on the horizons, whereas William will say nothing but it’s a fairly certain bet that he thinks this is awful'

Oh the Sussexes will be massive fans of it, 'CS speaking his truth!/correcting lies!' etc etc 🥱

There is not a bit of self awareness between any of them. It is blabbing and oversharing. It is everything they all pretend to hate.

William will bide his time, fuming quietly and with dignity.

There cannot be much more to be said surely? I mean endless programmes books and so on .He seems eager to cash in on his poor sister but wouldnt allow her to stay with him at Althorp at the time

I do remember there was a lot of negative stuff in the press after she and Charles divorced. Stories of silent phones call made to a former lover, hints of an affair with a certain rugby player, the highly embarrassing hacked phone calls, which Charles also became a victim of 😅 I think she wanted to marry the heart surgeon but he didnt want to become embroiled in the media circus ( very wise man)
Then the horror in Paris. Diana became a saint overnight. People wailing in the streets, people being beaten up for washing their cars on the day of the funeral etc. It was insane.
I do feel sad though, if only she hadn't declined the diplomatic protection she was entitled to as the future King's mother, she would still be here. Sadly it was put into her head that the establishment were spying on her (which maybe they were?)

This. He’s as bad and as ghoulish as the Hams. What don’t we know already about Diana anyway, realistically, the world is significantly less interested in her. Let her RIP.

He will be very selective in what he says, obviously. It's just awful, so grubby and trashy.

I hope when he does the usual promo interviews we have some journos that actually challenge him unlike the wet simps who have nodded along to Harry's delusions.

You want someone to say 'are you donating the money generated to charity otherwise it will seem greedy and unseemly to be making money from your sisters tragic death?' and 'can you see how hurtful and traumatic this will be for William having it all rehashed again?'

You’re right, I wasn’t there, well I was but I was a child.

The questionable choices as a mother I was referring to was all the dirty laundry being aired in public. The boys watching that awful interview at Eton, the book, the lot really. Charles was no better but we’re talking about Diana.

I’ve just always been baffled by the interest and love for a pretty flawed person. I don’t think she was evil, just an ordinary aristocrat of which we have plenty in this country.

My DM was one of those sobbing when she died. She travelled to London for the funeral and was one of those mourning on the Mall watching the coffin go by. Even as a child I thought it was absolutely bonkers.

@Dollymylove

I think that's right. Diana basically broke up Will Carling's marriage and was found to have been harrassing other married men with silent phone calls etc - someone called Gilbey? Hasnet Khan walked away - wise chap.

She could have attracted almost anyone yet she went off with Dodi Fayed. I'm sorry - I know attraction is entirely personal, but what a sleazebag. Did she really fancy him? It can't have been the money - she wasn't short of money.

I just do not understand what she saw in that man, and it was because of him and his horrible father that she was put in fatal danger.

My DM was one of those sobbing when she died. She travelled to London for the funeral and was one of those mourning on the Mall watching the coffin go by. Even as a child I thought it was absolutely bonkers.

I just thought 'why haven't people taken the cellophane off those flowers before putting them down - they can't be composted now!'

I was never a Diana worshipper but I did shed a tear as the funeral cortege drove out of London and people threw flowers in front of it. That was very memorable.

And the whole episode seems to have opened the floodgates for a lot of embarrassing emotional incontinence in this country in all kinds of ways.

That's why she was heavily criticised in the press at the time. Her sons were away at boarding school, and when they were on holiday, she was on the Fayed yacht sunning herself with Dodi.
That wasn't the complete picture of course, but definitely not wrong.

I wonder why CS didn't attend his dds weddings, does anyone know what went on there? Perhaps someone could write a book about the dysfunctional Spencers they seem to have such a lot of form. Wasn't his df awful too? Just for the truth obviously, nothing to do with gossip and sticking the boot in.

I remember the wife of one of the men Diana went after saying she used to turn up without being asked, and if the wife was there Diana would just sit there in what must have been a horribly awkward silence. Then if the wife left the room she sprang into animated conversation/flirting with the husband.

I must say, if I was the wife I would have taken pleasure in settling down with a good book and making it clear I was going nowhere.

@Asunciondelaflata

Surely they had a form of joint custody ?
You make it sound like Diana left the children high and dry .
Wasn’t it Charles turn ?

She just seemed a lost soul and reacted positively to whoever praised her or gave her attention. Plus she seemed to want to shock her ex Charles and probably hoped her cavorting on a yacht in the South Of France might rattle his cage.

Yes, I agree. It was all about the attention seeking, hence all the yacht pictures. She used to alert the paps, didn't she? It's a sad story. Perhaps she would have found some happiness and stability in her private life as time went on

I think you have the wrong poster. I never said anyone left the children "high and dry"? How strange.

They spent a lot of time with Charles at Balmoral that summer. As I understand it.

Diana had shared a 2 week Mediterranean cruise with her sons that summer after they broke up from school. The boys then had to return to Balmoral to be with their father and attend the RF's traditional summer holiday. Diana wasn't with them because it was her scheduled time apart under the formal co-parenting agreement. It was non-negotiable.

There are worst things to do. She could read music obviously. She was just more sports/arty than academic.

Those are standard accomplishments for young upper-class women though, it's not as if she were some kind of polymath.

Well either you believe she did it herself or she had lackeys do it for her. You can’t deny either with the homeless, AIDS and other hospital charities plus mine work abroad that she must’ve understood what she was doing. She shook hands with people with aids and brought her children along on visits. She helped clear the land mines abroad.

Yes. She wasn’t bright at school. But she had common sense. Yes she did silly things like her infamous interview but she was probably persuaded by the wrong people that this was the right thing to do.

She read music…

in those days, a future queen HAD to be a virgin. Diana at 19 had no ''past', yet she had to undergo a gynae examination to confirm her virginity.

I still can't believe this was a thing in the relatively not so distant past, it's absolutely disgusting @CoffeeCantata