Diana, 7 days and the walk behind the coffin

Yes I agree with all nigglynellie has said. Prince Charles has maintained a dignified silence throughout this emotionfest, the Princes should have done the same.

It seems her sons are following her with use of the media

Well Like most of us, I only knew of Diana what I learned from the media niggly .

Was astonished how her two young boys were made to be on display during the periods after their mother died, no grieving human being should have to display themselves during such times.

Not sure who's crazy idea the walking behind the coffin was but it was just plain wrong.

Anyone who has read Timothy Knatchbull's heartbreaking account of the day his grandfather Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA along with his fourteen year old twin brother, Nicholas, grandmother Lady Brabourne and local boy Paul Maxwell will know that he writes movingly of the Queen inviting him to Balmoral to help him recover and come to terms with the atrocity.

Far from being cold and uncaring, the Queen and the rest of the Royal family have always preferred to keep their feelings private.

Seeing the emotional incontinence taking place in London that week must have made them want to pull up the drawbridge and stay put.

The road less traveled comes to mind i.e. Dammed if you do dammed if you don't & absolutely pointless to judge yesterdays actions by today's thinking. Everything in life is in context to the the time & attitudes at that time . How many of us would do things differently now than that which we may have done in the past.And the only people who it actually truly matters to is Diana's family. We the public are guilty of presuming to know so much about the Royal family,their feelings &their behaviour & often confuse fact with fiction, if it's fairy tales we want then we should stick to reading books. Only the people involved know the truth,anything else is pure conjecture & fantasy! Sadly many,many people face the choice of whether or not to attended the funeral of a loved one & may at a latter date either be glad or saddened by their choice. Do not judge yesterday's decision on to days circumstances.

I came to accepting the monarchy is probably better than the alternatives late in life.
I am puzzled by people who express anger, resentment and disdain towards Diana. The marriage was a disaster for both of them. It's said they met 13 times before the wedding, she was 19 and he was in his early 30's. Both immature and both grew up with childhoods most of us would see as lacking in the provision of secure attachments or emotional stability. If she could have got out of it it seems likely she would have but as her sisters told her your 'face is on the tea towels you can't back out now.'
Her death was an absolute tragedy and it was not her fault as some suggest here. Not wearing a seat belt and having to form some kind of relationship with the press don't mean she somehow deserved to die.
Her sons were left motherless at a crucial time in their emotional development. They were already coping with an acrimonious divorce and all that goes with it. The public felt that Diana had been let down. by the firm and expected some display of grief from the royal family. For what its worth, I believe the Queen, Prince Philip and Prince Charles were right to keep William and Harry away from London in the immediate aftermath. I believe they were wrong to take the boys to Church within a couple of hours of them learning their mother had died. I couldn't criticise them for that, they were doing their best to keep calm and carry on.
I agree, it was plain wrong to have those young boys walk behind the coffin but again - what would have been the right thing in those emotionally charged days.
I do wish folks wouldn't take up positions in which one side or the other is all good or all bad. If Diana had been my daughter, I'd have advised her against the marriage. No doubt she'd have ignored me as most 19 year old daughters ignore their mothers best meant advice. In RL I wore my Don't do it Di badge but can't find it in my heart to be dismissive of any of the family at the heart of this tragedy. I'm so relieved that despite the travails my own family has faced, we've done so without the4 full glare of publicity and without the judgements so easily passed on the Windsor.

x posted with you there norose, very similar sentiments.

The royal family need to have some privacy. Like any family, especially at an unhappy time, such as that was. They have human weaknesses too.
But it's part of their job.
The media make it worse for them.

Golly, I feel like I reaped a whirlwind by starting this thread.

I have sort of missed half of August in TV terms because of holidays and haven't seen any other programmes, but keep seeing adverts for the forthcoming documentary about '7 days'.

As others have said, it will be good to get past the anniversary and all the hype, speculation and counter accusations.

I wasn't ome who cried or felt the need to lay flowers at Diana's sad passing - tragic though it was, I was bemused at the time by the scenes in London and just felt the boys needed to be protected.

Twenty years on, perhaps their own need to reflect and process grief afresh as adults now has been somewhat overtaken and exploited by palace and media alike - who knows where the boundaries are?!

Some here have expressed discomfort about the princes vocalising their grief - I hope this has / will help them longer-term.

She obviously did it well. 20 years and she is still making headlines. Lets face it, she was far more interesting than the rest of them.

As Merlotgran says..... those who accuse the Queen of being cold and uncaring should read Timothy Knatchbull excellent book on the IRA killing of his grandfather (Lord Mountbatten) his paternal grandmother and his twin brother. In the aftermath of the horror, with his parents in hospital , he and his young siblings were whisked up to Balmoral arriving in the early hours to be met by the Queen in the hallway with hugs, hot drinks and sandwiches.
Forever living her life in the public eye, she has had to cope with situations that would have driven many of us to therapy.... or drink! '

What is really strange is the fact that these two were in the car in the first place? Whatever possessed them to get into a car late at night against her bodyguards advice, knowing the paparazzi were waiting for them, driven by a chauffeur who had had too much to drink, driving like the bats out of hell, no seat belts, through an underpass incredibly dangerously, when they could have stayed where they were, spent the night in the luxury suite owned by the Fayed family as was the hotel, travelled in the morning arriving safely at their destination. Clearly this will forever remain a mystery, but what were they thinking of?!!

I think they were on a high playing "catch us if you can" she had spent the whole summer doing it

You could be right annie, but whatever it was it was the height of stupidity.

Exactly AB. Courting the press around the Med then roaring around Paris like schoolkids..... to the Windsors old home on the Bois de Boulogne (what f.... was all that about?.... apart from blatant showing-off from Dodi Fayed because Daddy now owned it), then to the Ritz (hardly keeping a low profile) and then to pile on the drama by roaring off to Dodi's apartment. Any sensible couple would have spent the night in the hotel...... hardly slumming it! Her bodygaurd sbould have clamped down on that, but I guess you had 2 people who were used to getting their own way unchallenged.

Thinking about it annie, I think you are almost certainly right. As you say willsmadnan, these two had spent the summer behaving extremely foolishly. Always having their own way regardless sadly proved fatal for both of them and I guess Diana's bodyguard had no say in the matter poor man.

Diana lacked whatever it is that makes parents behave responsibly when away because not only do they miss their children, they know how much their children will be missing them.

The old school Royals might have been well known for leaving childcare to others but they didn't behave in a way that would put their own lives at risk. Clearly Diana never gave much thought to what her shenanigans might be doing to the boys.

I think Diana was impulsive and jumped up and did things without first thinking about the possible consequences. Didn't Harry say Diana told him to be as naughty as you like, as long as you don't get caught? I agree with others here who say her behaviour verged on being irresponsible, foolish, maybe even selfish.
Perhaps when the princes were children Diana's recklessness and sense of fun endeared her to them, but perhaps now as men they are finding it hard to reconcile this with the gravity of being heirs to the throne. For them there must be a lot of conflicting emotions, it's not easy.

I think she was was determined to bug queenie and family. Prancing on .Fayeds boat, taking her sons onto fayeds private beach with boats of photographers bobbing on the sea. refusing royal bodyguards , the press were informed every day where she would be , making sure the world knew she was at the Windsor villa . I have been told she was a very vengeful woman , plus she had planned to take her sons to America to holiday with a very wealthy man, the royal protection team advised it was unsafe so she couldn't take her sons, so last minute off to fayeds villa

I'm not watching any of the programmes because I was incredibly sad at the time and I still feel sad about it now. She was, at the time of her death, the most famous person in the world. Her car drove past the end of our road once, on the way to the airport, and we stood there waving our flags; even to catch just a glimpse of her was like being touched by magic. There was something about her that touched my heart, and I was astounded to realise, after her death, that so many other people felt the same way. No matter how much you manipulate the news media, you can't make people feel like that. Can't believe it's twenty years, though. Can still remember my daughter sitting on the end of my bed when we heard the news and saying 'well, mum; it seems like they've got us back for Joan of Arc'...

The media or the people wanted the flag at half mast and they couldn't put it at half mast because the queen wasn't there and the flag wasn't flying.

I think the two princes have had time to get over their mother's untimely death. They have not faced up to the truth. That with a seat belt and sober drivers she would probably still be alive.

no nigglynellie we KNEW what SHE wanted us to know,a very different thing.As to her" amazing charity work" its hardly charity when you make a very good living out of it...and she did .It iswhat kept her in the public eye and in the manner she wanted.I wasn't a fan then and I think her sons are every bit as bad as she was ..manipulating the media and the public for their own gain.As I've said before we ALL lose parents we dont all go crying to the press after 20 years about it.They need to grow up !!

The problem with sudden traumatic loss is the trauma - this can greatly complicate grieving and given the public pressures upon the princes and the media gaze it is not surprising if grieving healthily has become further complicated for them. Add to loss, their father's second marriage to navigate - to a woman that they must feel made their mother's life very sad, plus all the insinuations of conspiracy, the disgusting behaviour of the papprazzi - the list could go on. Whatever the rights or wrongs of how Diana behaved, those boys have had a great deal to come to terms with and in a pretty 'buttoned up' family by all accounts.

Twenty years is a significant anniversary and it is not surprising that it is a time of exploration of grief for Diana's sons. I am not saying I agree with how it is all being handled now, but I think it is very wrong to suggest they should be 'over it'. My mother lost her mother when she was 11 and it was a trauma that marked the whole of her life.