Diana General Chat #1

[amabel]

Yes I think that for all the glamour and pageantry, it has a bitter taste. The  2 of them were not happy. At best, at the time, they boht had severe doubts... and as time went on, it got so much worse...

[sandy]

Diana told Morton she had high hopes that day. And on the tapes told Morton "that's over" when she saw Camilla watching. Diana did say she loved Charles.

[amabel]

but she said that shortly befor the marriage, she wanted to pull out.. and it probably would have been a lot better if they had been able to call off the marriage..

[sandy]

She told all to Morton and she did indeed say she had high hopes on the wedding day. Charles sent her a note the night before reassuring her

[amabel]

She told all to Morton and she did indeed say she had high hopes on the wedding day. Charles sent her a note the night before reassuring her

it would have probalby ebeen a lot better for her and Charles if they could have broken off the engagement..

[TLLK]

I agree or that they should have dated for a longer period of time and not become engaged in the first place.

[amabel]

I agree or that they should have dated for a longer period of time and not become engaged in the first place.

but they did. I really can't feel "oh the wedding was so great".. when I know how much unhappiness it generated..It really was a difficult and sad marriage and had a lot of ramifcations -.  I know that if they had asked ht queen to end it, they simply would have been told they had to go ahead at the time.. but I think the Queen could not have foreseen the tragedy...

[sandy]

Charles talked about watching the wedding tape on their honeymoon with Diana. He did not seem miserable watching the replays and seeing what he missed seeing at the time. Princess Margaret said that she hoped Camilla would "give up" CHarles or words to that effect. The Queen was warned about Charles involvement with married Camilla ca. 1979. So I think the Queen may have ostriched about the ramifications of the wedding concerning Charles and Camilla's involvement.  Maybe the Queen had concerns but would push it to the back of her mind and not want to think about it. The Queen Mum wanted her grandson to get married and not have a crisis by being a bachelor involved with a married woman. CHarles should have quietly ended the relationship pre engagement if he thought he could not fully commit to the young woman.

[sara8150]

Royals tied balloons to their tiaras at Princess Diana's pre-wedding party - Mirror Online

Princess Diana was only allowed to invite 100 people to Royal Wedding - Charles got 1,900 - Mirror Online

Princess Diana's shocking weight loss meant wedding dress makers had to keep starting again - Mirror Online

Prince Charles was 'furious' when secret stag do at gentleman's club didn't go to plan - Mirror Online

[LouisFerdinand]

I like Princess Diana's bridal bouquet.     
Princess Diana Wedding Bouquet - YouTube

[LouisFerdinand]

The Glass Coach was not large enough to accomodate the 25 foot train. Bridesmaid India Hicks recalled "try as best as I could to dewrinkle the situation" as Lady Diana stepped out of the carriage to enter the cathedral.

[LouisFerdinand]

Were some commentators shocked when Princess Diana insisted on taking the six-month-old Prince William on an extended tour of Australia and New Zealand?   
 

:xmas7: :xmas7: :xmas7: :xmas7: :xmas7:

[Curryong]

Only people who usually faint and clutch their pearls whenever someone in the public eye does something that's without precedent. Of course the Press whipped it up into a supposed controversy. However, most people thought it was much more natural than leaving their young child with nannies and grandparents for months while they were abroad, not to mention going to horse races in preference an only son's second birthday after returning from a holiday. . 

[Amabel2]

I don't think people were shocked, but perhaps a bit surprised because he was quite young and it was a long journey and it was a working tour where Diana would be very busy and not able to be with him a good bit of the time. But Di was so popular that they wanted her to be working in Australia, so it wasn't a case that she could have stayed home and let Charles do the tour...

[TLLK]

Only people who usually faint and clutch their pearls whenever someone in the public eye does something that's without precedent. Of course the Press whipped it up into a supposed controversy. However, most people thought it was much more natural than leaving their young child with nannies and grandparents for months while they were abroad, not to mention going to horse races in preference an only son's second birthday after returning from a holiday. . 

I agree and honestly the press failed to consider that the precedent was set during an era when long haul travel was done by ship (weeks) and not jumbo jets (hours).  :notamused:

[Amabel2]

Upper adn middle class people also saw less of their children.. they were looked after by nannies, supervised by grandparents... sent to boarding school.  and some people did think that it was a long way to take a baby for the sake of a few weeks...
I dont think that Diana took her children on tours again after that first one..

[Curryong]

Upper adn middle class people also saw less of their children.. they were looked after by nannies, supervised by grandparents... sent to boarding school.  and some people did think that it was a long way to take a baby for the sake of a few weeks...
I dont think that Diana took her children on tours again after that first one..

Geographically the Aus/NZ tour was the longest tour away from Britain that Charles and Diana undertook. And those who were shocked by it, and I genuinely didn't hear many moans about it at all, obviously had no children of their own or had forgotten how precious every memory is of their babies' first couple of years of life.

Things were changing in the 1980s. All that stoic stuff from the 1950s about parent-children relationships had long since gone and in fact the Queen held on to those concepts well into the 1960s when they were fast disappearing.

She was said to have stated about Diana that she couldn't understand her changing an appointment one day because the nanny was away and there was no one to look after William (this was before Harry was born.) She is supposed to have said 'There's always a housemaid around...' Well, in fact there weren't housemaids at KP and Diana liked looking after her own children.

And, although admittedly the later 1940s/1950s were certainly starchy decades, there were few young mothers even then who would have gone to the races in preference to their toddler son's birthday after not seeing him for weeks. I can't imagine the QM doing it for example, and Princess Alice, Philip's mother, was apparently horrified when she found there was no birthday party going on for young Prince Andrew in the nurseries at BP in the 1960s. Alice and the QM were certainly from the upperclasses and brought their children up in that way much earlier than the 1940s to '60s. Yet they were close and loving mothers to their children (Alice's illness in the 1930s and her necessary separation from Philip very much grieved her)  and as Lady Strathmore had been to her large family as well.

The QM was devastated to leave the infant Elizabeth on a long Empire tour in 1928, and both parents rushed to see her when they returned. She was upset to find that her daughter was wary of her for a little while after the return. There are no reports of the present Queen rushing back to the nursery after any of her trips anywhere, or being worried by her small children being formal with her, and one wonders actually whether there are regrets now about the emotional unavailability side of parenthood she often displayed. 

The truth is that the Queen has always been an undemonstrative and rather distant mother. There are many examples of this which have come to light over the years. Her remark about the housemaid shows an incredibly out of touch attitude. It's akin to the barrister who, in the Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity case in around 1960, asked the jury (in all seriousness) 'Is this a book you would permit your wife or servants to read?' I mean, Pleeeze! In 1960 not 1860! Thank God those days have gone!

[TLLK]

IMO part of Diana's legacy was that it was now considered to be appropriate to take your infant with you on a long haul trip.
I recall photos from 2004 when the new royal mothers and fathers: NL's W-A and Maxima and Norway's Haakon and Mette-Marit brought their  baby girls to Felipe and Letizia's wedding. The babies didn't attend the wedding or any pre-nuptial events but they were there. Queen Rania of Jordan would bring her babies along as well when she traveled on official business.

Obviously the Cambridges and Sussexes have brought George/ Charlotte and Archie on official tours/trips (Australia/NZ, Canada, Germany,  South Africa)  in part because they were invited as a family unit.

[LouisFerdinand]

Did Prince Harry as a small child accompany his parents on an extended working tour?   

:xmas17: :xmas17: :xmas17: :xmas17:

[Curryong]

No, LF, mainly because the Aus/NZ trip when William was a baby was the longest extended trip far away that the couple undertook, as I said before. They went to other places of course, but they were, even Canada, relatively short trips compared to that one and just across the Atlantic. Australia is half a world away from Britain and even now (in normal times) is 24 hours away with stopovers for refuelling.
Double post auto-merged: December 30, 2020, 10:52:16 PM

IMO part of Diana's legacy was that it was now considered to be appropriate to take your infant with you on a long haul trip.
I recall photos from 2004 when the new royal mothers and fathers: NL's W-A and Maxima and Norway's Haakon and Mette-Marit brought their  baby girls to Felipe and Letizia's wedding. The babies didn't attend the wedding or any pre-nuptial events but they were there. Queen Rania of Jordan would bring her babies along as well when she traveled on official business.

Obviously the Cambridges and Sussexes have brought George/ Charlotte and Archie on official tours/trips (Australia/NZ, Canada, Germany,  South Africa)  in part because they were invited as a family unit.

Yes, exactly, TLLK, and the parents and children relationship is all the better for it. That distance between them, iwith nursery staff ruling the roost, in every country, has virtually gone.

Of course there are difficulties when the children are of school age, there is a difference between Queen regnants and consorts and of course how things were done seventy years ago is looked on with amazement and some horror now. I do realise that the Queen could hardly have the young Charles and Anne rattling around the Britannia for weeks on those lengthy tours, so it was inevitable that there would be separations. However, as I said, there is a matter of degrees.

Elizabeth was madly in love with Philip and earlier in her marriage, adored being with him on Malta and elsewhere. Its just a pity that it was so blindingly obvious in her children's upbringing that routine and order came first along with her husband and her children came a distant second to the way things had always been done. Even in the 1940s and earlier there were women who were mothers first and participated in their offsprings lives day by day. The Queen unfortunately is a rather emotionally repressed and undemonstrative person and has been like that all her life. It came out in her family life, and that's a shame.

[TLLK]

The only time I recall school aged Wales brothers on tour with their parents was in 1991 when they visited Canada. Do you recall other family official visits @Curryong?

https://www.cbc.ca/archives/charles-diana-william-harry-visit-canada-ontario-1991-1.5316289

There is a short video clip in the CBC link with Diana, William and "Henry" on the Maid of the Mist.  :happy:

[Curryong]

The only time I recall school aged Wales brothers on tour with their parents was in 1991 when they visited Canada.

That's right, but Canada isn't half a world away in terms of distance and I don't believe the Canada tour was an extremely long one either. Plus, obviously leaving school aged boys alone for a week or two when they are in boarding school most of the time anyway, is different to being apart from your first child when he was a baby. Most of Diana's engagements, after her separation from Charles anyway, were undertaken when her sons were at school or were with their father.

[LouisFerdinand]

Miss Bartlett, the Head of the Work Room at the Royal School of Needlework contacted David and Elizabeth Emanuel. The school gave them a piece of royal lace that Queen Mary had given to the school. This lace formed the central bodice lace on Diana's dress.

[LouisFerdinand]

This is the first time I had seen photographs of Princess Diana dancing with either Tom Selleck and Clint Eastwood.   
This must have been a special moment for Tom and Clint. How often does one dance with an English Princess?

[Macrobug67]

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