Diana, 7 days and the walk behind the coffin

I think William and Harry have thankfully realised that already Day6. The problem is we will have to get through Charles' reign first and, as he won't let go of the old style monarchy, things could go backwards a step or two. He isn't at all personable, and in a weirdly arrogant way he might want to be as removed as he can be from the way in which Diana took the institution forward.

I don't envy the royal family the scrutiny they face in this day and age, a time when lives of the famous and wannabe famous are played out in newspapers and magazines. However - what is Charles doing this week? Are William and Catherine feeling any pressure at all? Is the Queen feeling worn out? Nope. Chances they are all on their private estates having every whim tended to by their servants. If not in the public eye they are living an extremely privileged and pampered lifestyle. They could be basking on a private island somewhere. It's hard to feel much sympathy. Like us, the royal family has to endure heartache and pain but they also have the cushion of wealth, privilege, seclusion and an army of staff to see them through it.

Diana-gate highlighted many of their inadequacies, short comings and privileges and I think the ' reformed' monarchy is better for it.

I am glad we re-lived that week in 1997 again, via the media. It made me think about the anachronism that is the monarchy. I feel the Diana years cast a different light on the Windsors and they've had to do a PR job on the public ever since.

Diana now ought to be properly laid to rest. I liked her very much but her time is over. I'd like to see a pared down monarchy go forward, knowing they will forever more have to be aware of public feeling if they are to maintain their privileges.

Many of his girlfriends were hounded by the press, difference being this one didn't break off from the relationship . Anne use to drive into Buck house with Mark Phillips in the boot of her car and she led the press on by making out there was something between her and Richard Meade

That's the key thing norose, that a photograph of Diana on the front page guaranteed sales. She was pursued from age 19 and it can't be surprising if she tried to gain some control.

Yes I think they all do their bit Tegan, but the press aren't so interested in the them , presumably because there isn't so much money to be made out of them

That's true; isn't she the most hard working Royal of the lot? I do like Zara, too [who refers to them as 'my dodgy family' sometimes, and then laughs]. Princess Anne has done a good job with her children.

Yes Tegan I think she touched many people's lives , & the younger & (dare I say ) the more attractive & vivacious a person is the more we feel affected & saddened by their tragic death.
Just as a side note Princess Anne has done so much for charities but rarely if ever gets recognition for it.

It was one of the first times that a public figure had died and had left me with a personal feeling of loss [the first time was probably John Peel].That feeling surprised me, and surprised me even more when I realised that I was far from alone. I actually felt that I needed to work through some kind of grief process to come to terms with it.

I think everyone one was sincere in their grief Eloethan, I'm not a particular fan of Prince Charles, but he does do tremendous work in getting young people into work through the Duchy of Cornwall schemes & training programs , but the media isn't really interested in publicising this because it doesn't have a 'wow' factor or sell their papers

anniebach You say: "Yet Charles is judged as a cruel husband , a philanderer, heartless, calculating."

The vast majority of comments on this thread have been critical of Diana and the "fuss" surrounding her, and complimentary about the royal family and Charles.

Diana has been described on this thread as "foolish, attention-seeking, manipulative, obsessed with the media, a game player, indiscreet, vengeful, etc. etc., and it has been implied that she was a selfish mother who cared little for the effect of her impliedly outrageous behaviour on her sons. (I personally don't think Charles's behaviour was particularly mature or praiseworthy either).

Charles didn't "keep his Counsel". He allowed his pal Jonathan Dimbleby to trail him for over a year and then write a sycophantic biography. This was followed by a very flattering TV documentary showing him doing "good works", rather than, as the New York Times commented wryly "relaxing, playing polo or lounging in the lap of luxury ... Instead, he is depicted as earnest, hard-working and thoughtful .."

No doubt some of those weeping and wailing people watching the funeral procession in London were people more interested in the pomp and ceremony of the occasion and enjoyed the opportunity to indulge in a bit of dramatics. They may well now be equally as keen to turn up at other royal events waving their flags and cheering. However, there were many people who sat at home watching the TV who felt a genuine sense of sadness at what had happened.

Perhaps we should be judging ourselves & our obsession with a family who which actually know nothing about in terms of their personal feelings, strengths & weaknesses. After all that is just what they are a family like the rest of us, who make mistakes, & at times wish we had done things differently etc etc, Unfortunately for them by accident of birth they have to play out their lives to a very exacting audience, I don't think wealth & privalage ( as some seem to think ) cushions them from the same emotions we all share. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we all always made the right decisions & had no regrets. Surley it's obvious that they did what they thought was best at the time , and that is all any of us can do no matter what our circumstances.. or position is in life .

Diana did behave very foolishly particularly that last summer and made no secret of it. Apart from the interview with J. Dimbleby, the P of W pretty well kept his own council. The cards were so stacked against him in the eyes of the public that any defence on his part would have been futile. Now as then, he's maintained a dignified silence and lets hope that this is the last time this poor man has to endure (in silence) public condemnation for his failed first marriage, ( which ended,be it all tragically, twenty years ago,) courtesy of his own sons.

Surely that's the same as people judging Diana?!

Yet Charles is judged as a cruel husband , a philanderer, heartless, calculating .

Yes, I do!

niggly do you not feel that your comment "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" is at odds with your earlier comment "There was nothing sincere
or honourable about Earl Spencer and there still isn't." - how do you know that?

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!!

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'

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.

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!

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.

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

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 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.

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.