Discussion about Charles Spencer's book - Swan Song : Diana, my sister , Beautiful, Beloved, Hunted.

[BasiliskStare]

I know there is a thread about the theft of some pre publication editions of this book.
This thread is more by way of a book club discussion about the actual book , the text. Threads will go where they will , but my intention is this is more for me to give my opinion on the book and for others who read it or are interested in the book to join in. I have pre-ordered from Kindle (half price otherwise I may not have 😊) But is only available on September 22nd. So a holding place if you like.

@quaintireneofrye

Lol! We’d hardly be discussing it if we’d seen his rages that frequently on camera . His short, tightly controlled interactions prove nothing

Weve seen snippets of it even on public engagements so the many reports of him raging behind the scenes add up

Can you link to the many articles that prove William not just has a temper (we all do), but that he is physically aggressive?

A 13yo boy angry, embarrassed and upset at his mother for discussing his parents infidelity on national TV and pushing her away when she tried to hug him isn't the catch you think it is.

Is it the same as a 28yo married, mother of 2 pushing an elderly woman down stairs? I highly doubt a 13yo could really do that much damage, and when it's put in context would be a very natural, expected reaction.

It was well reported at the time that William was upset with Diana after the Bashir interview and told her she shouldn't have done it.

You appear very easily influenced by media and SM reports. Maybe try some critical thinking. Do you have children? If you did, you'd see a fairly normal reaction from a young teenager who's been humiliated publicly.

"Lol"? It's not funny, it's a serious accusation.
So we haven't seen it, and there is no evidence of it.
Ok.

‘Royal author ‘ Robert Lacey for one

look it up for yourself .

Sorry for the duplicate post.

That old thing?

Adding the relevant passage. Young adult occasionally shouts. Stop the presses. Sounds like pretty much everyone else in the world, ever. Especially one dealing with the loss of a parent while in the international spotlight.

He clearly is overall a stable person - as demonstrated by his working as a Search & Rescue pilot, then Air Ambulance pilot for years. He would have needed to be calm under pressure and to work closely and well in small teams. Which he clearly did.

You seem very keen to smear and criticise people for acting like humans - imperfect at times, but entirely unwilling to see their positives.

Edit to add - it's never once been reported that William's staff were crying at their desks, or been bullied out of their jobs, or had to get therapy because of how they were treated.

Quite. There are no "snippets". William is in the public eye a lot. We've seen nothing of this, quite the opposite, in fact.

This Sussex narrative that he’s some kind of
raging hulk of anger is quite laughable.

It's such obvious nonsense. They've obviously nothing better.

Ah the old personal abuse again.

Readers can google for themselves .

The difference is that William has grown and matured while Harry seems stuck in some teenage mode.

Absolutely. I don't know the man and have never met him, I'm sure he probably does have a temper - we all do. But there is absolutely zero evidence of him being a bully or physically abusive to anyone. Taking examples of a young boy/teenager in highly emotional settings and using them against him is a frankly vile thing to do. And the epitome of gaslighting.

Those sad posters who claimed Catherine was missing because William beat her up.

Absolutely. So when he was a teenager, William got angry? Understandable, he was dealing with his mother being killed in a horrific accident and all the press fall out.
As you say, the difference is that William has engaged with counselling, moved forward and become a fully functioning adult.

Awful. The threads on here were vile.

I did, and provided quotes. You haven't.

👌🏼

and now seemingly over that embarrassment and pushing the same nonsense again. New names, same old lies

But in this case recycling rubbish doesn’t work

In answer to the question asked upthread, yes, Ingrid Seward has a new book out, called 'Catherine & Diana'.

This is why she was giving an interview in which the old story of William being upset with his mother came up.
He was at Eton in November 1995 (2 months after he started) and watched the Bashir interview in his housemaster's study. The boys would later tease him about it.
I wonder why a 13 year old boy would be upset about that ...

How can someone provide proof of this , without incriminating themselves by showing exactly where they got this particular gossip from 🤷‍♀️

I've found an article actually written by Robert Lacey.
I won't quote it all as it's really long but easily Googled:

It was not until this explosive material was in the can, being edited by a secret BBC team at a hotel in Eastbourne, that Diana started to reflect on how her two boys — both away at boarding school — might feel about it.
According to Simone Simmons, the Princess’s confidante and faith-healer, it took a phone call from William’s Eton housemaster, Dr Andrew Gailey, to prompt Diana.
Gailey had read the advance publicity in the newspapers and phoned to tell her it was ‘imperative’, in his view, that she should come to explain things to William, face to face.
‘Is that really necessary?’ she asked him.

In another phone call from Gailey the next day, Simmons told the editor-in-chief of royal magazine Majesty, Ingrid Seward, he effectively ordered Diana down the M4 motorway to talk to her son.

Afterwards she drove on to Ludgrove, Harry’s prep school half an hour away, to deliver the same message in person to her younger son.
‘Don’t worry,’ she assured him. ‘Everything will be fine — I promise.’
The 11-year-old Prince was offered the chance to watch the interview on the TV set of his personal protection officer at Ludgrove.
He declined, and the details of how Harry later reacted to his mother’s revelations are still obscure.

But William went down to his housemaster’s study shortly before 8pm that Monday to sit alone and watch as Panorama’s revolving globe and percussive theme music made way for the close-up of his mother’s wide eyes and heavily kohled eyelids as she fired off her broadside of embarrassing accusations.
Before the 58 minutes ended, William was weeping.
Gailey told Diana that he found her son slumped on the sofa, his eyes red with tears.
The Prince pulled himself together to rush back to his room — but when, an hour later, Diana telephoned on the house phone, William refused to take her call.
Something inside him had snapped. ‘He hated the idea of everything being on television,’ related Simmons, ‘and he knew his friends would poke fun at him, which they did.
‘He felt she made a fool of herself — and of him.’
**

By the time he went home to Kensington Palace at the end of that week to see Diana, he was raging. ‘All hell broke loose,’ Diana told Simmons the following Monday.
‘He was furious . . . that she had spoken badly of his father, furious that she had mentioned Hewitt . . . he started shouting and crying and when she tried to put her arms around him, he shoved her away.’

The asterisks show where I've cut out some bits about Eton traditions which didn't seem pertinent.
William's actions don't seem unreasonable for a 13 year old boy.

I haven't found anything on several ‘royal authors’ confirm[ing] William’s short temper/ bellowing rages.
(Letters in square brackets are mine. The apostrophe is not)

Because there is no proof!

Thank you @LaMarschallin.

I feel so sorry for that young boy.