Diana, 7 days and the walk behind the coffin

A pretty buttoned up family ? Such a pity they are classed as such because they don't "do" I feel your pain, let me share my pain" .

I just hope when this programme is aired that the matter will be laid to rest.
I was in Europe when the accident happened and their press was certainly not holding back on the photos printed and images shown on the TV. It was an awful invasion of privacy even if Diana did court the attention.
Let the Princes get on with their lives and draw a line under it.

Anniebach we will never know really - we only see the public face they want us to see. I think overall the princes have done some good work on raising issues about mental health - though I do not lump grief in with mental health 'problems' - it is just a natural process. But they are criticised either way, for staying silent or being 'too open'. I hope they have been truly supported to grieve 'well' - helped to process the trauma. The recent comments that they have made which have been bandied about in the media suggest that they have had some difficulties over the years. And yet, if anyone should have had easy and appropriate access to supportive counselling it should be them because of their royal status.
From what has been said, they seem to have internalised a lot of pain over the years, Anniversaries do bring things to the fore and sometimes present new hurdles. I hope the process of sharing has been cathartic to them. There is no wrong or right way to grieve - as long as there is the opportunity to ...

Having just watched this, what memories it brought back.
I also found myself wondering by "what right" we felt (then and now) to comment on the actions of a family devastated by such a tragedy. The media and public intrusion into Diana's death as into her life was abhorrent and most of us were complicit in this. I admit to looking at the pictures of what she was wearing, even turning out to stand on a pavement when she opened something or other near where we lived. I think the foreign press were even more extreme but our own tabloids and "celeb" magazines ran them a close second.
Yes the Queen as Head of State is a public figure with a strong sense of duty, but would any of us, as Grannies, bring our DGSs back to London to face the newspapers, the cameras and the TV or would you hunker down as a family in private to let them grieve and somehow start to live with their shock?
The public hysteria in London was to me deeply upsetting and intrusive. I think William and Harry said as much, but very tactfully, when they said they found it strange (I would have been less polite) and people who did not know her or them grabbing them, screaming, wailing, somehow expecting to share their grief and possibly hoping to invoke a reaction. I believe women fainted at Rudolph Valentine's funeral, likewise I expect at Elvis's or John Lennon's - to me this was more Hollywood than London in the 90's.
As for walking behind the coffin, they are proud now that they did this for their mother and William in particular was very aware of his dual role as "Prince William" and his duty, and "William" the 15 year okd who wanted to shut himself in a room and cry.
Their role was not to "comfort us", how dare we impose that burden on them, but to honour their mother both as Princess of Wales and as their mum.
They showed (to me) a dignity and sensitivity beyond their years, a sense of duty and unselfishness sadly absent even from some public figures today.
Diana would have been proud of them.

I was angry at the time and this programme reminds me just why I was so angry. Such selfishness by the public , the press headlines - your people need you. What a load of rubbish, and those women screeching out the names of the two children, sickening. How did she change the lives of millions? Such hysteria and such hurt for queenie

Is Harry still on holiday in Africa while we're being subjected to all this?

I bet Kate will be glad when it's all over. There's another one tomorrow night.

#somethingtoavoid

Poor Kate

Does BBC Wales know something the rest of Wales hasn't been told?

They have a programme Wednesday night ' The
Last Princess of Wales'

Is Wales finally getting the title PofW returned ?

they're probably turning Wales into a "Region of England"*Anniebach" your friend Mr Corbyn wants all the regions and countries of ENGLAND (not the UK) to be treated fairly apparently over Brexit so us Scots as well will henceforth be called a REGION of England ....in their dreams !!

Good grief Paddyann, doesn't he know England is that bit of land which seperates the Countries of .Scotland and Wales ?

Please now enough with Diana stuff and let the people who actually knew her do their own memorials and remembrance. I do hope we aren't going to have all this every few years. She has more than gone down in the history books - enough now with the press and TV.

Fair enough teetime but may one not comment on last night's TV programme?

I'm with nigglynellie agree with all the points made. And yes Teetime enough already let the woman rest in peace and everyone get on with their lives.

I'm with you Teetime.

Well, I'll never forget her .

I'm with you Tegan.

I'm glad I 'knew her'
She gave the royal family a good kick up their stuffy bums!
I've enjoyed watching bits and bobs about her.

I watched the programme last night and will admit I shed some tears, just as I did at the time.

I liked Diana, perhaps because we were of a similar age, had our children at similar times, and I was also married to a man who discarded me for another and hurt me deeply. I felt we had a lot in common.

I watched the wedding, loved her reaction to motherhood, liked the way she changed the royal family by being 'more human' and less stand-offish and felt for her when it was obvious she was unhappily married. Charles' ongoing relationship with Camilla must have been so hard to bear. She wasn't his intellectual equal, his aristocratic equal or of a similar age. His friends and many of the Windsor's rejected her so she must have felt so lonely. Her unhappiness was palpable. Yet she had already become the star of the family with her genuine interest in people. She did touch those who welcomed her presence and she always seemed warm and unaffected, despite her royal constraints.

When she started to play Charles at his own game I felt the worm had turned and cheered her on. She's been cornered and had nowhere else to go. I too had spend my nights crying as my marriage disintegrated. Hers was falling apart in public and I don't blame her at all for behaving as she did. Sauce for the goose AND gander. She shook them up and the Firm must have loathed her. Her life became nightmarish and her behaviour afterwards wasn't that of a royal, but in many ways I liked her for rocking the boat and not slinking away from the royal family, who disliked her, without a fight.

She married the wrong man, was a lamb to the slaughter in many ways but there was no doubting her love for her boys and the way she tried to give them a happy, less stuffy childhood. She changed the monarchy forever and her story will always be an incredible period of royal history.

I enjoyed last nights programme. It brought it all back and I remember crying when her body as brought back to England and when the carriage carrying her coffin left the palace. her story should have been happier and I felt for the two sons she left behind. The silence was incredible. No planes flew, no birds sang. All that could be heard was the rumble of the carriage wheels and the clip-clopping of the horses' hooves.

I still felt that strange thrill as Charles Spencer finished his hard-hitting eulogy in Westminster Abbey to stunned silence - and then there was a noise from outside, the noise of the public standing up to give him an ovation. The clapping spread from the parks and streets where millions were watching and came through the doors of the Abbey and the congregation joined in. It was like one massive Mexican wave of sound and I suspect so many of us were feeling that emotion. I felt it all over again whilst watching it last night. It as incredible.

It was a touching, beautiful send off and the programme highlighted what an amazing feat it was to put together a state funeral on that scale in such a short space of time. Royal protocol also changed for her...The Windsors knew she had to have that send off and I believe Charles insisted she had the funeral of a princess and that her coffin should be draped with the royal standard..something she wasn't entitled to after being stripped of her HRH title.

I was quite spellbound watching it all again on TV. It took me back and I admit to having felt quite emotional, all over again. I think I also appreciated more way she has her quiet and secluded resting place at Althorp, the Spencer estate.

She lies on a tiny green island in the middle of a lake, with just a marble plinth erected. There is no headstone apparently.

Like her or loathe her, Diana touched the world. The programme is worth watching imo, if only to appreciate the massive plan of action which had to be put into place to bring her home, give her a fitting funeral and lay her to rest. A very sad story.

I cried, again.

Well said Day6. Pretty much sums up how I feel/felt about it all. As for the programme I can't watch it; not only would the content make me feel sad but it frightens me that this was 20 years ago and yet it could be yesterday. I felt a maternal love for those boys when their mother died that I still feel to this day [William being the same age as my son]. Diana brought out the decent, caring side of people and her death highlighted that in a way I doubt any off us will see again.

I can't be the only person who is heartily fed up with all this Diana stuff, can I?

My daughter and I had a little cry watching it all again, day6.
I actually saw more of the funeral this time: the incredibly tense looks of the coffin bearers on the slippery floor, etc. Elton John's eyebrow twitching as he sang for her! I have really enjoyed reminiscing with my daughter, who was Williams age when Diana died.

You're not henetha! I've tried to avoid it like the plague, but even so it's still it's been difficult to miss! The whole marriage was a nightmare for all concerned, Earl Spencer, considering his own shabby matrimonial track record, behaved extreme badly, playing to the gallery of all the weepers and wailers, and causing the maximum embarrassment to TRH's! Let's hope fervently that this lady can finally laid to rest! The only tears shed in this house were those of exasperation!

Looking back, I'm reminded of and aghast at the attitude of the so called grieving public. What right did anyone have to demand that the Queen return to London and as for putting the boys through those ghastly photo calls in front of weeping 'mourners'......GAH!

No wonder Prince William is keen to keep his family out of the public eye.

No henetha you are not the only one.

Niggly, I thought Spencer was a hypocrite playing to the hysteria which hit the country .

He is brutal to his wives , now with wife no 3 . And as for that speech, ' we your blood family '. She wasn't speaking to her mother, a sister or her brother at the time she died .

I think it unfair to say people who do not weep, hug etc in public are 'buttoned up' I don't want a head of state racing around hugging and declaring 'I feel you pain'

Totally agree with you annie. There was nothing sincere
or honourable about Earl Spencer and there still isn't. Whatever we individually feel about the royals, it was a shameful way to behave and very undignified. We only know about the ins and outs of that marriage from what the mainly tabloid press chose to sensationally feed us, and unless you actually live with a situation on a daily basis you cannot possibly know all the details, and certainly can't make an informed opinion., but of course people did and behaved in a ridiculous hysterical way about somebody they had never even met, never mind knew!!