From shy Di to queen of hearts
Diana forged such a stunning new relationship between royalty and the people even the Queen had to take note
IT WAS a baptism of fire. Diana’s first tour of Australia and New Zealand in April 1983 was the making of her.
She flew out a nervous girl and returned home a mature young woman, a smiling, handshaking, touchy-feely star of the Windsor road show.
For me it was my first major tour as a royal writer and my first encounter with the Princess of Wales.
When she walked into the media reception in the unglamorous setting of an Alice Springs hotel she was understandably nervous at meeting the media who had dogged her every footstep since her wedding.
Though she was hot, jet-lagged and sunburnt she charmed and captivated the representatives of the Fourth Estate. What I came to realise later was that her first week on that first major overseas tour was utterly traumatic.
Back in the privacy of her hotel room she cried her eyes out, unable to handle the constant attention.
She wanted to go home, she wanted to hide, the princess overwhelmed by the size of the crowds in a nation gripped by Di -mania. But she survived.
Years later she explained her secret to me: “I’ve got what my mother’s got. However bloody you’re feeling you can put on the most amazing show of happiness.”
It didn’t help that Prince Charles, the former star of the royal roadshow, was reduced to a walk on part, the crowds groaning on walkabouts when he came to their side of the road.
As Diana told me: “He was jealous; I understood the jealousy, but I couldn’t explain that I didn’t ask for it.”
What caused this universal excitement was that here was a girl who looked like a fairy-tale princess and acted like one too, touching, cuddling and hugging her public.
She had a real empathy with the crowds who came to see and, hopefully, talk to her.
However it took her some years to come to terms with her popularity, to acknowledge she was indeed a people’s princess.
In those early years she was baffled and bewildered by the effect she had, struggling to balance her lonely
I’ve got what my mother’s got. However bloody you’re feeling you can put on the most amazing show of happiness.
life inside Kensington Palace with the adoration she experienced outside.
While she was not able to fully articulate it, she had a natural appeal, a charisma that embraced all colours and creeds.
By the end she was divorced from Prince Charles and the monarchy, yet had managed to forge her own path, a unique combination of Hollywood glamour and global humanitarian.
She saw herself as princess for the world rather than Princess of Wales.
Her death, and the response to it, forced the monarchy into changes that made it feel more inclusive and welcoming.
Even the Queen, formidably steadfast in a rapidly evolving world, acknowledged the lessons from Diana’s life, publicly stating the monarchy had to reflect the changes in society.