Diana Memorial Service and Concert, 2007

[Charity]

I too think that Diana could have greatly benefited from heeding advice from Katherine (were it asked for and given).  It would seem that Diana had a tendency to follow her own track regardless though, with somewhat disastrous results.  She apparently liked Katherine, but they weren't the same generation and Katherine's idea of duty and Diana's seemed to be at odds.

I remember when it was reported that members of the royal family thought she was shirking her duty, but then, this was before she was properly diagnosed with the debilitating illness.  True to her character, I would imagine that Katherine herself didn't discuss/divulge much of her troubles even to her relations, so its a little bit understandable that they misunderstood. 

Also, I think I remember reading somewhere that her mother died around the time she lost her baby, so that contributed to her severe depression.  I don't have a source for that to hand at the moment though.

 

[Olga Maria]

Ah, now I see.

[alixaannencova]

Exactly Charity, that is my point...had Diana wanted to look, there was a member of the previous generation within the RF, with whom she could have related her problems to. I am not assuming that they had anything in common, but perhaps Katherine Kent would have been the most likely figure to turn to for advice or to whom one could compare oneself,  at least during the latter part of the eighties. Perhaps, in her own way, the Duchess may have advised Diana to pull, not only her head in so to speak, but herself together for that matter, but perhaps Diana did not see it or accept it like that....this is pure speculation I warrant!

I accept though, as you say, Diana chose her own path, especially when one compares her to Katherine Kent! But, it is important to point out that she was not entirely 'alone'. Okay,...so, Katherine Kent went about finding and establishing her independence in a subtler more mature way, but she was still laying the ground rules long before Diana and Charles' horrendous trip to Korea! By then Katherine Kent was already 'doing' her own thing I believe, as well as balancing that with her royal duties and no one, neither establishment, press nor public objected nor sort to, openly anyway. This, I believe is because Katherine Kent has never behaved like a victim, but instead accepted the so called fundamentals or 'bed of roses' of being married into the RF and managed to created her own life within as well as without and got on with life. Hers is an example of how to survive and still lead a meaningful and fulfilled life as a member of the RF....voila, there.... sorry... let's move on shall we before I get in to trouble! Diana's ground tends to be rather rocky to say the least and I keep forgetting that this thread is about where one was when Diana died, not about her life etc....!

[Eric_Lowe]

Well...One must bear in mind that Diana and Katherine came from different backgrounds. Diana was born into gentry with closeness with the Royal Family that Katherine did not share. As a result Diana (and to a certain degree Fergie) sees the Queen and her family as people rather than a crown or institution. She believes in equality in a marriage, and soon drop the "Sir" to her royal husband. Katherine was a subject of the Queen and as a common girl (one without a title and the closeness with the Royal Family), she saw it as duty. The fact was Katherine was very supportive of Diana's charity work (unlike Charles and other members of the Royal Family) and the two women were close friends. When Diana died she took over the Aids Foundation from her. Her story reminded me a bit about Diana's grandmother, Cynthia, Countess Spencer.

[alixaannencova]

Diana came from the aristocracy Eric. Katherine Kent is from the landed gentry and to a lesser degree Sarah, Duchess of York is also from the ranks of the gentry. I do see your point that Diana and Sarah had both been acquainted with the RF long before their marriages whereas Katherine Kent had not which may have coloured perceptions somewhat.

[Eric_Lowe]

Yes...That point was bought home when at the furneral of Diana, Charles Spencer (Diana's brother, who was also a godson of the Queen) bought a stunning rebuke to the Royal Family's treatment of his sister. I cannot imagine the Duchess of Kent would do the same. The generation gap between the two women also meant the idea of women's equality (remember the embarassing situation that led to Frances Spencer to go to a fertility clinic after producing three girls...) was different. Katherine's daughter Lady Helen Windor was also an independent woman with a career.

Back to the day Diana died, the days following were sombre and a deep sadness swept over the world. 

[Lindelle]

Like to no what other think of this. Yes the Queen has a duty to her country and she takes that seriously BUT in the case of her grandchildren losing their mother I think she used her heart before her head. William and Harry would have been in untold shock so the queen and family rally around them. To those of us who have lost someone dear we know that the last thing we can do is comprehend the situation properly and that is speaking as an adult. So what were the RF supposed to do? Come out so the public could see them and say 'here we are-having a good look at us while we grieve'? I believe the RF respected the boys and their own feelings BEFORE they showed themselves to the world. This has always been a subject that has riled me to no end. The boys lost their MOTHER and all the newspapers were saying was 'Come out and show us you care about us!' The Queen was simply acting as Grandmother, she didn't want her grandsons to be shown off to the public and I believe she did the right thing when she made the tv appearance and I believe she did that with the greatest timing to the boys.

I was sitting at home watching tv when the announcement was made.

[Erika]

I was at my neighbor's house playing when we walked by the television and learned what had happened. I was seven years at that time and had never heard of Diana.

[tom_romanov]

I was 3 (almost 4) so I guess it's one of my earliest memories. We were up early because we were holding a car-boot sale (like a yard sale) and there was a picture of Diana on a black background on the TV. That's all I remember, I wasn't really interested at the time, being a little kid.

[Douglas]

First, I really wanted Diana to have a new life, husband and to be happy. 
 
 I had just come back from buying a Fax machine for my business.  I turned on the TV and there was the beginning of the story.  I was numb for a couple days. [I'm in the USA]  My mother happened to be visiting that day.  She's was not the type to be overly moved by something like death.  Her mother had died when she was age nine.

 A true tragedy.  I couldn't help but think about her two young sons and the impact that it would have on them.  I must have played that thought  a thousand times in my mind.

I doubt that they will  ever be free of the inpact of their mother's death at that young age.

[Mari]

First, I really wanted Diana to have a new life, husband and to be happy.
A true tragedy.  I couldn't help but think about her two young sons and the impact that it would have on them.  I must have played that thought  a thousand times in my mind.

That is exactly what I wished for her Douglas...although it would have been difficult but maybe not impossible to have married  with a son that would one day be King!  She so badly deserved a chance to have a happy marriage and not one that started with a Man who was in love with another Woman! And then I think She could have reined in a lot of the drinking William and Harry have been doing. I remember a photo of Harry at a party when he was maybe 8 and he was misbehaving and Diana gave him that loving no...look that look to the side that said stop! And he stopped...the last picture I saw of them on vacation shortly before Diana died ....Harry had his arm around her neck! That night of the Car accident... staff later said the Prince William kept saying "it was a mistake...maybe it was a mistake." And that when they went into her Rooms to pick out things to keep William went as fast as he could and they said Harry kept lingering and picking up things and crying. It was all very sad!

[Naslednik Norvezhskiy]

I was helping prepare a barbeque in a forest which was part of the Buxhoeveden estate.

Well, that trumps my royal connection: I just heard it from my mother upon returning home from a bike trip with my father and brother around the southwest-Norwegian Lake of Frøyland (the one on Jæren, not in Sandnes), in which there is an islet believed to have been the birth place of Viking Age King Olav Tryggvason of Norway. (His pregnant mother was fleeing eastwards from rival claimants and Olav grew up as a slave in Estonia!) Of course, I can boost the royal connection with my hearing it in our garden, a mere 30 metres away from a stream, Storånå, whose freshwater pearls were the monopoly of Their Royal Majesties, the Queens of Denmark and Norway.....  (Sadly the stream is too polluted for pearls nowadays. :-( Oh and King Oscar II once stopped for a glass of spring water from a now disappeared spring a few hundred metres further north! :-)

At the time (I was 15) Diana's death made very little impression at all on me. It was just later when I joined royalty forums I understood that I had witnessed the making of a modern saint, in exactly the same hysteric manner saints were made by popular acclaim in the Middle Ages.

[RomanovsFan4Ever]

I was 11 years old, I was having lunch at my grandparents house, when my grandfather turned on the TV to watch the news, we heard the sad notice about the death of Lady Diana.
She was very loved and admired here in Italy.

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

mmmmm... I was only seven years old, so I only can remember that it was widely broadcasted on the news. It's impossible for me to remember even more