British Expatriate Network

On BBC 2 on Saturday night there was one of those retrospective shows that have been so fashionable of late called The Summer of 1997. The second half of the show looked at the death of Princess Diana and the mass outpouring of public grief and emotion. There were a lot of comments from people at the time who weeping said “she did so much for us” or “she helped so many,” or “she was one of us..” etc. There were even people who 10 years on burst into tears when recounting the whole affair. However, the commentator that really hit home for me was Ian Hislop. Hislop summarized how I felt and still feel about the whole affair perfectly. Private Eye attacked media coverage of Diana’s death at the time and Hislop read out some of the hate mail he received. He explained that he thought it was particularly bizarre to have tabloids spend weeks creating this image of Diana as a national martyr after spending years of totally unflattering coverage. He then commented that later that summer Mother Teresa died and no one gave a toss at all. There were no marches, no week long celebrations, no public weeping and 10 years later Diana is remembered as a gift from God whilst Mother Theresa is largely forgotten. He steadfastly maintains that to mourn Diana in such a fashion was and is utter nonsense. I couldn’t agree more really. To this day no-one has been able to explain to me what it was that Diana is supposed have to done to earn that reaction. I really don’t get it. What’s more surprising is when I mentioned the show to my neighbour in conversation she welled up and kept saying “she was such as special wonderful woman.” She began to cry!

Why? Please please someone enlighten me as to where this grief comes from. As far as I can tell she was an absurdly privileged wealthy woman of the type that British people tend to love to hate. What is it she did that had thousands weeping on the Mall? Why is Diana a national hero whilst any other royal with similar background and charity schedule isn’t? My confusion about that whole gushing of grief has got to the point where when seeing it on that TV show I was revolted. An extraordinarily rich woman with a quirky lifestyle and an eating disorder with the same UN ambassador status as Geri Halliwell died in a car crash. Isn’t that about it? That’s not the kind of event that should provoke the kind of reaction my neighbour had. I get that when I think about the guy stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square. I really find the whole thing completely ridiculous and in some ways grotesque. Am I alone here?

I agree totally - was an utterly ridiculous over reaction by a celebrity obssessed media. Maybe they saw the death of their point of obssession so decided to go all out with a big one. People picked up on it too - Missing the point of charity work and burying the Spencer family home under tons of flowers instead of maybe donating to one of Diana's charities or something.
I remember reading about Mother Theresa who died pretty much on the same day, and who was damn near a saint.Utterly ignored, despite being a newsworthy story when she was alive, in death no one was interested, not even a footnote on news at ten until weeks later.
A shameful public outpouring of unwarranted grief, or something like that,is one way i've heard it summarised. The day of the funeral was utterly absurd - continuing the big media show on all channels, people literally falling over themselves to say how upset they were and the tv and newspaper people falling over themselves to report it. - I feel sorry for all the people who had planned weddings that fell around that time, to be overshadowed by such a hideous circus must be alot to put up with.
I have no time for Royalty, don't really see the point in them anymore.

I loved Diana and im of the opinion she was loss to the country and humanity as a whole when she died . if you dont agree with this sentiment thats fine everyone is entitled to there opinion . i have many of the books written abouit Diana beforew and after her death .

As for mother teresa yes she did a lot of good for humanity as was a loss to the world ,catholics moarn her as they should ,
once again this was programe about Dianat the presenter choose her as his subject why on earth should mother teresa be mentioned?
if those that adore mother teresa so much want her remembered then they should present a programe about her on the same lines as the ones honouring Daina .
tbut in my mnd there is no such thing as a saint unless you are talking about a football team that resides in new orleans .

Wasn't it that Diana was a commoner -an unusual choice for the heir- so people viewed her as "one of us" rather than "one of them"?

I think people liked to think of her as a "commoner" as she worked in a day care when her and Charles got together.
In reality her family was/is hugely wealthy and what most people would consider at the very least upper class and were already related somewhere to the Royals.

I liked her. I found her death iffy to say the least. I think maybe people found her to be a symbol of what "royals" should be. Kind of like the Queen mum, warts and all. Eating disorder, husband with a long standing affair with the woman he's now married, divorce in her childhood, a willingness to meet people, aids patients, children, anyone it seemed.
She dragged the "royals" into the present and embarrassed the Queen by her reaction to the death.
As to the papers, I agree, they do the same with Fergie, who is appreciated over here but at home is Too fat, too rich, too everything.
The British press used to be good, now they're paid and manipulated and rarely tell the truth. look at the way they're now going after Macca's soon to be Ex.
She lived with the rich and privileged, but she died like a commoner, maybe that was it.

She was young and beautiful; she handled the public scrutiny with grace; she was of a more ancient line than Charles, and yet she was very human and could cuddle a baby with AIDS without hesitation.

People could pick and choose the atributes of the ideal princess and find them, or imagine them, in her. She became the sum of all good things to the majority of the people, even though the total might have been different for each person. Some will have been impressed by her lineage, others by her common touch, for example.

As to the fact that she is celebrated and Mother Teresa is not, nobody promised you that life would be fair, and if you haven't learned it yet, better start learning or life will continue to disappoint you. lol

Mr Bungle..............I agree with everything you said (and you put it much better than I could, thank-you wink )