How Diana taught Britain to judge less and care more
An extraordinary hybrid of glamour and pain, the People’s Princess redefined royalty and forged a legacy of compassion that endures to this day
WHAT if Prince Charles had married someone else? What if Diana, Princess of Wales had never existed? Seasoned royal commentators may well shrug and conclude the Royal Family would have marched on regardless in its time-honoured fashion.
Another suitable girl would have been found. Had he held out long enough, Charles might even have been allowed to marry a divorced Camilla.
But, as we look back to that devastating crash in Paris 25 years ago this Wednesday, it is crystal clear that in her tragically short life Diana profoundly changed this country, changed the world even, and in a way few public figures have ever achieved.
In 1981, the year of the Royal Wedding, both our head of state and our Prime Minister were women. But for girls like me, born in the seventies and struggling to find our place, the female figure who really touched us was the Princess of Wales.
Like a prism that cast light in unexpected corners, here was a girl who broke down barriers without ever really saying anything. Somehow, she reached beyond the confines of her gilded cage and that crazy, puffy wedding dress, stared down the barrel of a thousand camera lenses and gave the world a look that said: “I’ve arrived and I’m a bit scared. I’m not sure what the script is but let’s see where the story takes us.”
In the eighties there was no internet or social media. We all read the same newspapers and watched the same TV channels, and Diana was everywhere. It feels like only yesterday that I was squatting on my neighbour’s swirly carpet, consuming squash and Wotsits, watching with three quarters of a billion other people as the fairytale princess walked up the aisle.
By then, the juggernaut that was Princess Diana was already on its way. She did what no Windsor had ever done before; she reached across the class divide and connected with ordinary people… and the effect was electric.The modern Royal Family had never experienced anything like it.
So what was it about this Sloaney young woman, raised in mansions and boarding schools and ski chalets, that made us all sit up and take note?
FASHION designer Karl Lagerfeld once described her as “the most perfect example of a young, beautiful and modern woman”. But while she was undoubtedly beautiful, she was a flawed, insecure child of the upper classes, so not modern, or perfect. That was her appeal.
Diana walked an uncertain path, somewhere between stardom and soap opera, part philanthropist, part model, devoted mother, unhappy wife. And the world looked on, basking in her glory, forgiving her mistakes, willing her to win, and weeping in her wake.
Her death 25 years ago saw the great unbuttoning of Britain. The ‘Diana effect’ outlived its protagonist, defined an era, and almost destroyed the Royal Family. Our traditional stiff upper lip wobbled, and then gave way to a national paroxysm of grief.
Who can forget the sea of flowers outside the Kensington Palace gates, the sobbing crowds, and the thousands of scrawled cards and messages?
I can remember exactly where I was when I heard that the Princess of Wales had died in Paris, and I bet you can too. It was impossible to process at first. We felt we knew her. She was one of us. So I added to that sea of flowers, and stood beside the cellophane-clad mountain of misery. The Royal Family responded the only way they knew how, following their own traditions, and were amazed to discover that the British people decided that just wasn’t good enough.
Prompted by her Prime Minister Tony Blair, amid accusations she had failed to show Diana due respect, the Queen left Balmoral, where she had been cloistered with William and Harry, and returned to Buckingham Palace. There she met the crowds on what the writer Alan Bennett memorably described as a “mournabout”.
Blair paid tribute to “the People’s Princess”, and the Queen addressed the nation, describing Diana as an “exceptional and gifted human being”. The public anger subsided, a little.
On the day of Diana’s funeral you could hear a pin drop in the capital. Not since Churchill’s death had the country come together like that. Auden’s poem spoke for us all: “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone…bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.”
From the Royal Family down, Britain had undergone an epiphany. Feelings mattered. Diana mattered. It felt like her death was a reproach to an uncaring, brutal world. We could and must do better.
There were those who said it was all too much, that emotionally incontinent Britain had lost the plot. But that was to miss the point. Just as we learnt to adore the shy teenager who stood patiently beside her new fiancée as he dismissed their relationship with “whatever in love means”, we also learned to cry with her.
Diana didn’t hide her pain. And there was a lot of pain… from a fractured childhood, a “crowded marriage”, a lonely palace. She touched a nerve. Long before the arrival of reality TV, Diana taught us that it was healthy to express our feelings. From within the Royal Family, that very British phenome
non – emotional self control – was under attack. With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that Martin Bashir exploited Diana’s insecurities to produce his BBC Panorama interview. But back then we had no idea.
All we saw was a vulnerable woman who peered out from under her fringe, fixed us with those kohled eyes and told her story.
DIANA laid bare her version of events as millions watched. The world began to feel a little more human. Yet within two years she was suddenly gone. We were left with an overwhelming sense that we had lost a force for good, because Diana had displayed an extraordinary knack of channelling her own pain into empathy for others.
With the Princess by their side, the world’s most vulnerable felt ten feet tall. Until the 1980s, the royals had kept their distance – gracious waves, formal handshakes, grateful acceptance of flowers. But not Diana. She hugged the homeless, embraced AIDs sufferers – a first that proved a gamechanger – and she walked through minefields.
A Rubicon had been crossed and the world took note. With her actions, Diana challenged us to think and behave differently. And she was only 36.Think how much more she might have achieved.
But while we lost her too soon, her legacy lives on, in subtle and often unappreciated ways. Much has changed. Today we wear our vulnerabilities like a badge of honour.
It is all right to admit publicly that you are struggling and that everything is not as it seems, to ask for help.
Diana, both in life and death, must be given much of the credit for this shift in our behaviour and thinking.
Her sons William and Harry, in their very different ways, have tried to embrace her legacy. Their Heads Together mental health campaign and Prince Harry’s Invictus Games are a reminder that a compassionate society is a society that includes everyone. Prince William’s recent day as a Big Issue seller is a direct result of his mother’s links to charities for rough sleepers.
Yes, the boys have fallen out – but Diana wasn’t above a squabble herself. Just ask Elton John. She never pretended to be perfect and nor should we. She wore her heart on her sleeve and used her star power as a reminder that all too often the world rides roughshod over the little person.
In life, Diana was an extraordinary hybrid of glamour and pain. In death, the memory of her example taught us to judge less and care more. It’s been 25 years and we still miss her – and that’s unlikely to change any time soon.