31/08/07
Today is the 10th Anniversary of the death of Princess Diana.
I have always felt a certain affinity with her. We were born in the same year and I watched her fairy tale wedding on the television with my future Husband, full of hope for the future that it was possible for a bright bubbly personality to live happily every after with a more sober, older man.
I read my Hello at the hairdressers and saw the pictures on the News as her life unfolded. The pregnancies and births. The public occasions. The clothes. The new hairstyles. The glamorous lifestyle. Dancing with John Travolta and hobnobbing with celebrities.
Then the rumours started. And the press manipulation. I read Andrew Morton's book like car crash television - with my slitted fingers covering my eyes and yet unable to look away. The revelations were extraordinary. The eating disorders exacerbated, if not caused, by the sadness within her married life - more empathy there.
Whilst the Wales's marriage was spinning out of control into a very public fireball, I was engaged in bearing and bringing up my own two very small children. Seeing her turn up at the Serpentine Gallery in that fantastic little black dress, completely stealing the show away from her Husband, who was being interviewed about his life that very night on the television by Jonathan Dimbleby. Watching her, horrified, on Panorama as she revealed the very intimate details of the three people in her marriage and yet completely understanding the reasons why she did so.
It became apparent to all of us that she was as much an attention junky as any blogger on the internet today. Her desperation for everyone to love and admire her left her with no choice but to get third parties to voice the reality of her situation. And yet her ability to make people love her without having to do any of that was so clear. You only had to watch the reaction of the people who met her, even in the full glare of the media. They were completely smitten by her smile and the warmth in her eyes. Her devotion to her charitable causes, her determination to use her position and her persona to make a difference were immensely laudable attributes.
But I just wanted her to find someone who could give her the love she needed. All those men, the army types, the bodyguards, the sportsmen, the heart surgeon, the art dealer - none of them had the social standing or the gumption to be able to face down the paparazzi and deal with the disdain of the higher echelons of society in which she moved.
And then there was Dodi. Wealthy playboy, used to the attentions of the media. Accustomed to being considered a pariah by the English gentry. He and his father must have seemed so different to the cold family life that she had experienced where duty was all. In the world of the Al Fayeds, it seemed to be all about having fun and enjoying the world and all it had to offer, money no object.
Watching the documentaries about that last summer, I was taken back to my own thoughts as I saw the pictures on the evening News. She just looked as if she was having a great time. For once, completely relaxed and enjoying herself. The programmes in recent months have seemed to imply that a lot of it was staged for the cameras and maybe some of it was in an attempt to give the paparazzi what they needed so that the couple could ensure some time for themselves.
And then the cold reality of the cctv footage from the Paris Ritz. The Princess, tired and tearful from being chased around. Why didn't they just stay at the Ritz? Who will ever really know? But they exited stage left with a man who could have been drunk behind the wheel and it all ended in tears at pillar 13 of the Alma Tunnel. In another City, hundreds of miles to the north that I drive through regularly, there are a series of such tunnels and often, as I enter the dark, narrow tubes, I think about how easy it would be to lose control just for a split second... and I'm only travelling at 30mph.
We had been away visiting friends on the August Bank Holiday weekend of 1997, returning home late on Sunday night. My Husband awoke me at about 10am to tell me that they were reporting on the radio that Princess Diana had died and we turned on the television. To be honest, I felt quite tearful. She had been such an icon, such an immense figure throughout my life for the previous 17 years. I had grown up with her, tried to copy some of her fashion and hairstyles. She was the same age as me and she was dead.
As the days passed, the story unfolded and the mountain of flowers and messages outside Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace grew, I watched the public display of grief with a certain detachment. Yes, I could understand it but I had no desire to join it. I had my own personal memories of the happy smiling teenager who grew into such a beautiful but tormented woman.
I watched the Funeral from quite early in the morning. There were several tearful moments - the sight of the little wreath of, was it white lillies? on top of the coffin. With the card bearing the single word 'Mummy'. The appearance of the main men in her life, especially her young sons, as they joined the cortege behind the coffin and walked to the Cathedral and the eulogy given by her brother, Earl Spencer. I didn't look away until the hearse bearing her coffin drove in through the gates at Althorpe and disappeared.
Suddenly, there was no more to see. The Princess of Wales had left the stage and the world was a sorrier place without her. I think she touched the lives of so many people, just by being there, being photographed, being shared with us. The alacrity with which the Press tried to fill the void with the Kylies and Victoria Beckhams of the world was laughable.
The Prince went on to marry his mistress and seems to be living happily ever after. Do I begrudge him that? Of course not. He should have followed his heart and done it in the first place rather than making three people miserable by doing his duty. But if he had, then Diana Spencer would never have seen the light of a million flashbulbs... and the cult of her celebrity would never have been born.