Return to 1997 AUTUMN Index
by Sarah Keen
As the New Millennium goes to press, the United Kingdom learnt of the death of Diana Princess of Wales and her friend Dodi Fayed. When I woke to my radio news this morning and a loud blast of the National Anthem, my first reaction was that I was still asleep, dreaming and then secondly someone at the BBC was playing a joke in exceptionally bad taste.
For, really, that woman was too alive to be dead and only yesterday I had listened while my grandmother tutted away about the Princess' compromising behaviour and poor handling of the Le Monde interview. If, opined my grandmother 'she wanted to live abroad' she should and 'do us all a favour.' For my grandmother to say this was extra-ordinary. She adores the Royal Family and worries over their problems as if they were there own. Indeed she sympathises with the stress that the Queen Mother went through as one by one her grandchildren's marriages fell apart. 'They have had a bad year' my grandmother would say at Christmas or the Trooping of the Colour and comment on worry lines and grouchy poses. 'But', she would say chirpily at the end 'didn't she have a lovely hat.'.
Naturally Diana always had a lovely chapeau. From the moment that the gawky teenager caught the prince's eye the media fell in love. One of the earliest press release shows a dreamy girl, holding two children in her arms. Her skirt a light white Persil advertising dream turned transparent in bright sunshine. The world was treated to a vision of long long legs and knickers. An irritated Prince Charles explained about petticoats and the then Lady Di was deeply embarrassed.
Two years and many worlds separated Lady Diana from myself - an equally gawky teenager who also had to find a place in life. I watched her wedding (that dress) and wondered how on earth anyone could be so lucky. Diana's life appeared to be mapped and secure. Even then, though, I wondered how anyone could stand it: a life of ritual and no surprise. But she seemed happy, even Charles seemed happy - if ungracious 'Love - whatever that is' and the nation partied. My first term at University found little Lady Di clones everywhere in the English Department, collars of white ruffles and shy upward glances. Britain was in the middle of the Yuppie 80s, partied and spent in summers of security.
Ten years later we were told how much the Nation had been lied to. Deliberately, manipulatively deceived. Millions of tax payers money had been squandered in an absolute and cold blooded facade. People woke up to the fact that its Royal Family had been dishonest, the value of property was not what the landed gentry had said and the government, it seemed - with a long way before the next election, could not care less. Diana's desolation spoke and mirrored the pain of a generation caught in a misery of high unemployment, job insecurity and the nightmare of negative equity.
But both Royals played to the gallery. First we had Prince Charles seeking forgiveness and understanding and then Diana, strong, resolute and martyred fighting her corner. Both were asking for sympathy from a bemused country. Finally, to me and many here, we grew up and the Royal Family didn't. Prince Charles loved Camilla but not enough to do anything too painful for her. Diana went through a series of increasingly insane affairs. Each one more ridiculous and soul destroying than the last. The press spoke of squabbles over the divorce settlements and where to live. Poor Diana could not find somewhere suitable in London with 15M . Come on. In the office where I worked one couple saved painfully over a period of three years £12000 in order to move from their one bedroomed house which had plummeted in value since their purchase in 1987.
Anyone fighting to pay a mortgage, find money to run a car and put up with the petty squabbles of office life found it increasingly difficult to take any problems which Diana had seriously. Many, Many women marry husbands who don't love them. Not many, I think, walk away with the sums which ensure they need never worry about roofs or food again.
Sadly Diana's last efforts against land mines seemed disorganised and reported by the Press in terms of 'What the Princess wore.' In this case Armani Jeans and Calvin Kleine shirts. The victims she did meet seemed uncertain as to who she was. Before she went and on her return she was immediately in the arms of Dodi. Everyone has the right to fall in love and be loved. However, it seemed from the press reports that she was playing. Seeking attention and then hiding from it. Retiring to her boat and then swimming to waiting press coterie with sphinx like riddles.
Lady Diana Spencer married a real life Prince. Sadly, he was not on a white horse, he was not gallant and they didn't live happily ever after. Most women would have abandoned the ideal. But not Diana. Her beauty, her energy and real zest for life seemed to be squandered in the search for the next big romance. Hewitt, Carling, Oliver Hoare et al; the heroes in shining armour galloping to her rescue mainly turned out to be cads and bounders. Or so she let it be known to the same press she was so eager to flee from. Poor lady she was sadly lied to and in the end, it would appear, lied to herself and to us. Unlike her step grandmother's romantic novels Diana's story was set in the twentieth century where there are no heroes any more.
Sarah Keen
Click for a more uncharitable view from a cross goose