In Memory of your loved one
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Diana Spencer Tribute Extracts
Diana, Princess of Wales, is remembered by everyone she met for her warmth and genuine interest in their situation and difficulties. She threw herself into her charity work in a very personal way spending countless hours listening to the individual stories and problems of the people she visited.Her natural interest in other people and desire to give support was also shown in countless small ways, remembering people she met in personal notes and birthday cards and occasional unannounced visits to see people in need of help and support. She is not forgotten by the many people whose lives she touched, nor by those who admired her and is rightly respected and remembered today as a true humanitarian. This website tribute is truly in memory of one of the world's most humanitarian and caring people, a people's princess.
Her Life Story
Lady Diana Frances Spencer (1961-1997) married Prince Charles in 1981 and became Princess of Wales. Retaining her title after the royal couple divorced in 1996, Diana continued her humanitarian work. She died in a tragic car accident in 1997. Lady Diana Spencer began enchanting the public and international press shortly before July 29, 1981, wedding to Prince Charles of Wales, heir to the British throne, in a ceremony that was broadcast worldwide. The media's obsessive fascination with the Princess of Wales hardly waned over the years and at times became frenetic, particularly in the mid-1990s as her marriage to Prince Charles became increasingly unstable. On February 29, 1996, the Princess announced that she had agreed to a divorce. True to her high-profile image, in March of 1996 Diana suggested to Charles that they announce their divorce on television; according to The Daily Telegraph, Diana argued that such an appearance "would help the nation as much as themselves." After some stalling, Prince Charles agreed to the request and a hefty financial settlement of almost $23 million, plus $600,000 a year for the maintenance of Diana's private office. Diana, meanwhile, lost her title of Her Royal Highness and right to the throne, but kept the moniker Princess of Wales and continued to live in Kensington Palace. Just over a year after the divorce, Diana was killed in a car accident in Paris. Rumours about the stability of Charles and Diana's marriage surfaced repeatedly over the years. Many royal watchers say the union was destined for trouble because the fairy tale wedding raised expectations that most couples would find impossible to meet. Others cited the difference in the couple's ages and interests, and Charles's long-time friendship with Camilla Parker Bowles, a woman he had once asked to marry him. Diana Frances Spencer was born on July 1, 1961, in Norfolk, England, the third of the Lord and Lady Althorp's four children. She grew up at Park House, a mansion in Norfolk located next door to the royal family's Sandringham estate. One of Diana's playmates was Prince Andrew, Charles's brother. Diana's mother, the Honorable Frances Shand-Kydd, is the daughter of a wealthy Anglo-Irish baron. Lady Fermoy, Diana's grandmother, was for years chief lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother. Diana's father, the Viscount Althorp who became an earl in 1975, was a remote descendant of the Stuart kings and a direct descendant of King Charles II (1630-1685). The Spencers have served the Crown as courtiers for generations and are related to the Sir Winston Churchills and at least eight U.S. presidents, including George Washington, John Adams, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Diana's younger brother Charles is Queen Elizabeth's godson, and her father was the late Queen Mary's godson and former personal aide to both King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. Diana, a quiet and reserved child, had a relatively happy home life until she was eight years old, when her parents went through a bitter divorce, and her mother ran off with the heir to a wallpaper fortune. Her father eventually won the custody battle over their son and three daughters. Diana, who remained close to her mother, subsequently became depressed. In 1976 the Earl Spencer married Raine Legge, the daughter of British romance novelist Barbara Cartland. Apparently, the Spencer children and their stepmother had a stormy relationship. Diana's academic career was unremarkable. She was tutored at home until the age of nine, when she was sent to Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk. Her "major moment of academic distinction," according to People, was when she won an award in recognition of her taking good care of her guinea pig, Peanuts.When the guinea pig died she created a shrine in memory of him in the garden. A sign of what was going to happen in her life perhaps. At the age of 12, Diana began attending the exclusive West Heath School in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she developed a passion for ballet and later Prince Charles. She hung his picture above her cot at the boarding school and told a classmate, as reported by People," I would love to be a dancer - or Princess of Wales." Diana became bored with academics and dropped out of West Heath at the age of 16. Her father sent her to a Swiss finishing school, Chateau d'Oex. She became homesick within a few months and returned to Norfolk where she had fond memories. For a while she hired herself out as a cleaning woman, eventually finding work as a kindergarten teacher's aide. Her father bought her a three-bedroom flat not far from fashionable Sloane Street and Knightsbridge, where Diana helped her three roommates with housekeeping and cooking duties. Although Prince Charles had known Diana, literally the girl next door, for virtually all of her life, he regarded her as a playmate for his younger brothers. He later dated Diana's older sister, Lady Sarah, who eventually became Mrs. Neil McCorquodale. Lady Sarah reintroduced Charles and Diana at a 1977 pheasant hunt at Althorp. "[Diana] taught him how to tap-dance on the terrace," a family friend once told McCall's. "He thought she was adorable … full of vitality and terribly sweet." Charles was struck by "what a very amusing and jolly and attractive 16-year-old she was," Time reported. Diana concluded that the prince was "pretty amazing." Charles thought Diana was too young to consider as a marriage prospect, however, and the romance didn't bloom for another three years. In July of 1980 Diana visited the royal family's Balmoral Castle in Scotland to see her sister, Lady Jane, who was married to Robert Fellowes, the queen's assistant secretary. Once again Diana ran into Charles, and the two walked and fished together. Charles was quoted as saying in Time, "I began to realize what was going on in my mind and hers in particular." Diana was invited back in September. Soon afterward, reporters began to suspect the nature of her relationship with Charles and began to hound Diana mercilessly, photographing her with the prince at her London flat and once while holding one of the children at the nursery school where she taught. To her horror, the sun behind her back clearly outlined her thighs through her skirt in a photo that has since been reprinted many times. At one point Diana's mother fired off a letter to the London Times, demanding, "Is it necessary or fair to harass my daughter daily?," as quoted in Time. Charles proposed to Diana at dinner in his Buckingham Palace apartment on February 3, 1981. Diana was the first British citizen to marry the heir to the throne since 1659, when Prince James - later James II - married Lady Anne Hyde. In addition, Diana was an Anglican, presenting no legal obstacles to marriage with the man who, as king, would head the Church of England. Her past was pristine, a matter of great importance to the royal family. A well-known saying soon made the rounds in the press: Diana had a history, but no past. According to a Time interview with the royal couple, Charles said the courtship was conducted "like a military operation" on national television. He proposed over dinner for two before Diana's February 6 departure for a vacation in Australia. "I wanted to give Diana a chance to think about it - to think if it was going to be too awful. If she didn't like the idea, she could say she didn't. … But in fact she said …." Diana interrupted, "Yes, quite promptly. I never had any doubts about it." When Diana returned from her trip, Charles asked the Earl Spencer for his daughter's hand. Diana resigned her teaching post and moved into the palace's Clarence House with the Queen Mother, where she was instructed in royal protocol. The Archbishop of Canterbury and 25 other clerics officiated at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana on July 29, 1981. A congregation of 2,500 and a worldwide TV audience of about 750 million watched the ceremony under the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral. Five mounted military police officers led Diana in her glass coach from Clarence House to St. Paul's. Two million spectators - whose behavior was kept in check by 4,000 policemen and 2,228 soldiers - jammed the processional route. Soon afterward, Diana's professional life became an endless round of ceremonial tree plantings, introductions, and public appearances. She was scheduled for 170 official engagements during the year following the royal wedding. In their first seven years of marriage, the Prince and Princess of Wales made official visits to 19 countries and held hundreds of handshaking sessions. But Diana was shielded from the press, never making any public statements - except for those approved by the palace - or giving a private interview to any reporter. There seemed to be no doubts about Charles and Diana's love for each other in those early days. "Diana seems absolutely floating on air when she's around the Prince - squeezing his hand, nuzzling his cheek or leaning her head on his shoulder," Rita Lachman, a close friend of the Spencers, observed in McCall's. "And although the Prince's training has made his behavior more restrained, it is obvious how he feels about her." Later developments would make it appear that the relationship was rocky even before the marriage, but the public would only see the fairy tale facade. On November 5, 1981, the palace announced that the Princess of Wales was expecting a child. Charles was present when his wife gave birth at London's St. Mary's Hospital 11 months after the royal wedding. Dr. George Pinker, Queen Elizabeth's gynecologist, attended the birth. Prince William, nicknamed Wills, was born in June of 1982. A second son, Harry, was born two years later in September of 1984. Diana was said to be a doting mother, trying to raise the children as normally as possible, away from the glare of publicity. After giving birth, Diana dropped 30 pounds from her 5-foot 10-inch frame, according to a People correspondent, "leaving it lean and elegant - a splendid rack for the designer rags she assembled with impressive taste. Almost overnight a pretty girl was transformed into a statuesque belle." Around that time, reports alleging that Diana suffered from anorexia nervosa first began to surface. Over the years, Diana immersed herself in numerous charitable causes. She became involved in such social issues such as homelessness and drug abuse, visited leprosariums in Nigeria and Indonesia, shook hands with patients at an AIDS ward in a Middlesex Hospital, and once visited victims of an IRA (Irish Republican Army) bombing in Northern Ireland. In 1990, People noted, Diana was the patron of 44 charities, making more than 180 visits on their behalf the previous year. "I don't just want to be a name on a letterhead," the princess was quoted as saying in the Saturday Evening Post. In 1989 Diana became a patron of Relate, Britain's leading marriage counseling agency. She once addressed a crowd at Relate's Family of the Year ceremony, as quoted in People: "Marriage offers stability, and may be that is why nearly 7,000 couples a week begin new family lives of their own. Sadly, for many, reality fails to live up to expectations. When that happens, most couples draw on new reserves of love and strength." Ironically, Diana's own marriage apparently had been ailing for years. Rumors about marital problems surfaced just a few years after the wedding. The couple's first public spat, at a pheasant hunt at the queen's Norfolk estate, was followed two days later by another public row. The fairy tale turned into a soap opera, according to a British gossip columnist who characterized the situation as "Dallas in the palace." Many reports alleged that Charles quickly became disenchanted with his bride and that he was henpecked and obsessed with organic gardening and spiritualism. Diana was said to be bored, temperamental, self-absorbed, and clothes-mad. Over the next few years Charles and Diana's widely varying intellectual and social interests became apparent: He was an intellectual who preferred to read philosophical and thought-provoking literature, while Diana was partial to romance novels. Charles enjoyed polo and horseback riding; Diana once fell off a horse and had lost any passion she had for riding. He enjoyed opera; she preferred ballet and rock music. The media began tracking the number of days the two spent apart, noting Charles's lengthy stays away from home. Diana once said in public, People reported, that being a princess "isn't all it's cracked up to be." Buckingham Palace maintained a stony silence. The public's fascination with Diana fueled the media's insatiable hunger for sensational news about the princess. Coverage of the royal family was said to be more critical and crudely inquisitive than at any time since the early nineteenth century. As Suzanne Lowry, a writer for London's Sunday Times once wrote, according to Time: "What Diana clearly didn't understand when she took that fateful step [of marrying Charles] was that she could never get back into that nice, cozy private nursery again. … As James Whitaker [the London Mirror's royal watcher] might say to Diana with a nudge, 'You didn't know you were marrying us too, did you?"' While some of Charles and Diana's problems were blamed on incompatibility, many royal watchers speculated that trouble stemmed from the attention lavished on Diana, while Charles was largely ignored. When the prince delivered a serious speech, for example, the newspapers would mention it briefly below a large photo of Diana in her latest fashion. One longtime insider revealed in People, "The problems of the marriage have come out in the open because Di's self-confidence has developed. She now appreciates her own incredible sexuality and the fact that the world is at her feet. This adoration used to terrify her. Now she quite enjoys the effect she has." Media coverage of the royal family only increased after Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson in July of 1986. As People characterized it: "After five years in a corset of decorum, Di was ready to bust loose, and fun-loving Fergie was just the girl to help her unlace. … Soon the merry wives of Windsor were cutting up in public." Charles reportedly scolded Diana once for "trashing the dignity of the royal family," People reported, and Diana chided him for being "stuffy, boring and old before his time." The princess eventually tired of the antics and settled down. In June of 1991, young Prince William sustained a skull fracture after being hit in the head with a golf club. Diana spent two nights with her son in the hospital, while Charles reportedly dropped in once, on his way to an opera. From that point on, Time pointed out, the "tabloids have smelled blood." A month later, Charles and Diana spent her 30th birthday apart. The press relished the news, ignoring the fact that Diana sported a new gold and mother-of-pearl bracelet the next day. One of three biographies of Diana published in 1992, Andrew Morton's Diana: Her True Story alleged that Diana attempted suicide five times in the early 1980s - the first only six months after the wedding, while she was pregnant with William. The episodes were characterized as cries for help rather than serious attempts to end her life. Morton's book, along with the others, also claimed that Diana suffered from bulimia. Morton's biography, sympathetic to Diana, is said to be the most damaging to the prince, portraying Diana as a martyr with a cold fish for a husband. The book was given more credence than others because, as Newsweek reported, the "revelations were unusually specific, extraordinarily well sourced and … they [made] sense in light of Charles and Diana's recent public behavior." Rumors surfaced that Diana collaborated with Morton - or at least approved the project, giving close friends and relatives permission to be interviewed. Diana's father, who died of a heart attack on March 29, 1992, had sold dozens of her childhood photographs to Morton's publisher. Amid rumors in the fall of 1992 that a Wales separation announcement was forthcoming came intense media scrutiny of Diana's male friendships. A retired bank manager contacted the Sun in 1990, offering a tape recording of a chummy 1989 cellular telephone conversation between a man - supposedly Diana's close friend, James Gilbey - and a woman he believed to be Diana. The press subsequently resurrected old tales about an alleged dalliance between Diana and her riding instructor, Major James Hewitt. These claims were spelled out in Anna Pasternak's book Princess in Love. On December 9, 1992, it was formally announced that the royal couple was separating. In 1993 Diana announced that due to exhaustion from the intense media scrutiny, she would be withdrawing from public life, though she would continue her charity work. For the next two years, with a few exceptions, she kept a fairly low media profile. During this time she sought government advice about how she might have some role as an ambassador for Britain, but no firm arrangements were made. In 1994, Prince Charles granted a wide-ranging television interview to Jonathan Dimbleby, which was broadcast at the same time that Dimbleby's biography of Charles appeared in bookstores. In an uncharacteristically frank interview, Charles admitted his relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, though he claimed this relationship began only in 1986, after his marriage with Diana had completely broken down. However, after the couple's divorce was announced in 1996, it seemed apparent that Charles had carried a torch for Camilla Parker Bowles since before his marriage to Diana, and it was speculated that he would marry her. In November of the following year, Diana responded with a frank interview of her own, on BBC's Panorama program. The interview was particularly controversial because Diana had informed Queen Elizabeth of the interview only after it had already taken place, and just days before it was scheduled to be broadcast. The interview drew the largest viewing audience in Panorama's 43-year history - 21.1 million viewers, from a total British population of 57 million. Typically, Diana's interview drew more attention than Charles' had; only 14 million people had watched his interview the year before. According to a front page story in the Daily Telegraph, "her composure and fluency could have rivalled that of a statesman." While the BBC stated that Diana had not been given editorial control over the program, she was obviously well-prepared for the difficult questions. The Daily Telegraph's media correspondent pointed out that "no question took her by surprise, and no answers were fluffed. Some of the toughest ones produced distinctly unspontaneous lines, such as 'Well there were three of us in the marriage so it was a bit crowded,"' referring to Charles's long-standing affair with Bowles. The Panorama interview seemed to put to rest any possibility of a reconciliation between the Prince and Princess of Wales. Shortly thereafter, the Queen took the unprecedented step of asking the couple to consider a divorce. On February 29, 1996, Diana gave her consent to a divorce - though again she violated protocol by not informing the Queen first. It was announced in July of 1996 that the royals had worked out the divorce terms. Diana would continue to be involved in all decisions about the children and the couple would share access to them, she would remain at Kensington Palace, and would be known as Diana, Princess of Wales - loosing the prefix H.R.H. (Her Royal Highness) and any right to ascend to the British throne. However, she kept all of her jewelry and received a lump-sum alimony settlement of almost $23 million, and Charles agreed to pay for the annual maintenance of her private office. Diana continued her diplomatic role as Princess of Wales after the divorce. She visited terminally ill people in hospitals, traveled to Bosnia to meet the victims of land mines, and met Mother Teresa in New York City's South Bronx in June 1997. Romantically, the press linked her with Hasnat Khan, a Pakistani-born heart surgeon and Dodi al Fayed, whose father owned Harrods Department Store in London. However, her number one priority remained her two sons. As Diana spent more time with Fayed, the paparazzi hounded the couple, who could not go anywhere without cameras following close behind. On August 31, 1997, the paparazzi followed the couple after they dined at the Ritz Hotel in Paris (owned by Fayed's father). The combination of the pursuing paparazzi, driving at a high rate of speed, and having a drunk driver behind the wheel, all played into the automobile accident which claimed Princess Diana's life. Some witnesses stated that photographers frantically snapped pictures and obstructed police officers and rescue workers from aiding the victims. The driver and Fayed died at the scene; Princess Diana died from her injuries a few hours later. Photographers on the scene faced possible charges under France's "Good Samaritan" law, which requires people to come to the aid of accident victims on public roads. However, several blood tests showed that driver Henri Paul was legally drunk. Legal experts believed that the investigation into Diana's death was likely to take months, possibly years, to determine how much the paparazzi, alcohol, and speed were to blame. The world mourned for "the people's princess" with an outpouring of emotion and flowers. People waited up to eight hours to sign condolence books at St. James Palace in memory of Diana, and 100,000 people per day passed through Kensington Palace, where Diana lived. Her mother, Francis Shand Kydd stated, "I thank God for the gift of Diana and for all her loving and giving. I give her back to Him, with my love, pride and admiration to rest in peace." However, Britons and the British press soon lashed out at the royal family, who did not share in the public grieving. Headlines begged the family to show us you care." Truly surprised by the backlash, Queen Elizabeth II went on live television the day before the funeral. It was only the second time in the queen's 45-year reign that she had appeared on live TV, not counting her annual Christmas greeting. She spoke as "your queen and as a grandmother," and stated "I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being." Diana's funeral was held in Westminster Abbey on September 6th. Her sons, Princes Willam and Harry, her brother, Earl Spencer, her ex-husband, Prince Charles, and her ex-father-in-law, Prince Philip, as well as five representatives from each of the 110 charities she represented, followed the coffin during part of the funeral procession. Elton John re-wrote the song "Candle in the Wind" and sang "Goodbye England's Rose" for his close friend. It was estimated that 2.5 billion people watched Princess Diana's funeral on television, nearly half the population of the world. One royal watcher stated, "Diana made the monarchy more in touch with people." Further Reading Morton, Andrew, Diana: Her True Story, Simon & Schuster, 1992. Morton, Andrew, Diana: her new life, Pocket Star, 1995. Davies, Nicholas, Diana: the lonely princess, Carol Pub., 1996. Clarke, Mary Little girl lost: in memory of the troubled childhood of Princess Diana by the woman who raised her, Carol Pub., 1996. Daily Telegraph, November 29, 1994; November 15, 1995;November 22, 1995; February 12, 1996; February 29, 1996; March 4, 1996. Esquire, June 1992. Maclean's, July 24, 1989; August 5, 1991; June 15, 1992. McCall's, June 1982. Newsweek, October 28, 1985; February 6, 1989; June 22, 1992;September 15, 1997. New York Times, March 30, 1992; June 9, 1992; June 20, 1992. People, Spring 1988; July 16, 1990; September 14, 1992; September 15, 1997; September 22, 1997. Saturday Evening Post, September 1989. Time, March 9, 1981; August 3, 1981; February 28, 1983; November 11, 1985; July 29, 1991; September 15, 1997.
Her Timeline
01 July 1961 Diana Frances Spencer was born on July 01, 1961 in Park House, Sandringham Estate, Norfolk, England, the youngest daughter of Edward Spencer, Viscount Althorp, and his first wife, Frances Spencer, Viscountess Althorp (formerly the Honourable Frances Burke Roche). She was baptised at St. Mary Magdalene Church in Sandringham, by Rt. Rev. Percy Herbert (rector of the church and former Bishop of Norwich and Blackburn); her godparents included John Floyd (the chairman of Christie's). 1965 - 1977 As was the custom among the aristocracy at the time, Diana was sent off to boarding school at Riddlesworth Hall and later to West Heath Girls School in Kent. Diana never excelled academically at school but was recognized at West Heath with a special award for service in 1977. She was described there as "a girl who notices what needs to be done, then does it willingly and cheerfully." 01 January 1975 On the death of her paternal grandfather, Albert Spencer, 7th Earl Spencer, in 1975, Diana's father became the 8th Earl Spencer, at which time she became Lady Diana Spencer and moved from her childhood home at Park House to her family's sixteenth-century ancestral home of Althorp. 01 January 1976 A year later, Lord Spencer married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, the only daughter of the highly eccentric romantic novelist Barbara Cartland, after being named as the "other party" in the Earl and Countess of Dartmouth's divorce. During this time Diana travelled up and down the country, living between her parents homes - with her father at the Spencer seat in Northamptonshire, and with her mother, who had moved north west of Glasgow in Scotland. Diana, like her siblings, did not gel with her new stepmother, sending her hate mail, allegedly throwing her down a flight of stairs and having a very public argument with her at her brothers wedding in 1989.According to some accounts, Diana threw herstepmother's possessions out the windows of Althorp in black bin liners after her fathers funeral in 1992. The women reached a truce, even a friendship, towards the end of the princess's life. 01 January 1977 In 1977, aged 16, she left West Heath and briefly attended Institut Alpin Videmanette, a finishing school in Rougemont, Switzerland. At about that time, she first met her future husband, who was dating her sister, Lady Sarah. Diana excelled in swimming and diving and reportedly longed to be a ballerina, but at 5 feet 10 inches was too tall. 29 July 1981 The Prince's love life had always been the subject of press speculation, and he was linked to numerous glamorous and aristocratic women. In his early thirties, he was under increasing pressure to marry. Legally, the only requirement was that he could not marry a Roman Catholic; a member of the Church of England was preferred. His great-uncle Lord Mountbatten of Burma, who was assassinated by an IRA bomb in 1979, had advised him to marry a virginal young woman who would look up to him. In order to gain the approval of his family and their advisors, any potential bride was expected to have a royal or aristocratic background, as well as be Protestant and, preferably, a virgin. Diana seemed to meet all of these qualifications. They married at St Paul's Cathedral on the 29 July 1981, watched by a global audience of almost one billion. 21 June 1982 Prince William Arthur Phillip Louis, born on 21 June, 1982. 15 September 1984 Prince Henry Charles Albert David, known as Harry, was born on 15 September, 1984 01 April 1987 In April 1987, the Princess of Wales was one of the first high-profile celebrities to be photographed touching a person infected with HIV. Her contribution to changing the public opinion of AIDS sufferers was summarised in December 2001 by Bill Clinton at the 'Diana, Princess of Wales Lecture on AIDS': “ In 1987, when so many still believed that AIDS could be contracted through casual contact, Princess Diana sat on the sickbed of a man with AIDS and held his hand. She showed the world that people with AIDS deserve no isolation, but compassion and kindness. It helped change world's opinion, andgave hope to people with AIDS. ”—Bill Clinton Diana did not, however, become seriously involved in promoting AIDS-research initiatives or in campaigns limiting the spread of the disease. Diana also supposedly made clandestine visits to show kindness to the sick. According to nurses, she would turn up unannounced (for example, at the Mildmay Hospice in London) with specific instructions that her visit was to be concealed from the media. In fact, information about these "private" visits regularly appeared in thepress. The pictures of Diana touring an already-cleared Angolan minefield, in a ballistic helmet and flak jacket were seen worldwide. It was during this campaign that conservatives accused the Princess of meddling in politics and declared her a 'loose cannon'. In August that year, just days before her death, she visited Bosnia with the Landmine Survivors Network. Her interest in landmines was focused on the injuries they create, often to children, long after a conflict is over. She is believed to have influenced the signing, though only after her deathof the Ottawa Treaty, which created an international ban on the use of anti-personnel landmines.Introducing the Second Reading of the Landmines Bill 1998 to the British House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, paid tribute to Diana's work on landmines: “ All Honourable Members will be aware from their postbags of the immense contribution made by Diana, Princess of Wales to bringing home to many of our constituents the human costs of landmines. The best way in which to remember and record our appreciation of her work, and the work of NGOs that have campaigned against landmines, is to pass the Bill, and to pave the way towards a global ban on landmines. ”—Robin Cook As of January 2005, however, Diana's activities, and hopeful legacy regarding landmines had become stuck. The United Nations appealed to the nations which produced and stockpiled the largest numbers of landmines (China, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States) to sign the Ottawa Treaty forbidding their production and use, for which Diana had campaigned. Despite renewed attempts to make progress in memory of Diana's crusade, Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said that landmines remained "a deadly attraction for children, whose innatecuriosity and need for play often lure them directly into harm's way". July 1981 - August 1996 Diana's married life started badly and gradually got worse 09 December 1992 In the mid-1980s, the marriage of Diana and Charles fell apart, an event at first suppressed but then sensationalised by the world media. Both the Prince and Princess of Wales allegedly spoke to the press through friends, each blaming the other for the marriage's demise. In her famous television interview with Martin Bashir on Panorama, Diana admitted to at least one extra-marital affair, with James Hewitt. Other men rumoured to have been her lovers, both before and after her divorce, included her bodyguard, Barry Mannakee, Christopher Whalley, Philip Waterhouse, King Juan Carlos of Spain, James Gilbey, Oliver Hoare, Dr. Hasnat Khan, Bryan Adams, Will Carling, and Harrods heir Dodi Fayed. You'd think most husbands would have noticed! The true nature of her relationships with these men seems to have varied from casual date to confirmed lover. The Prince and Princess of Wales were inevitably separated on 9 December 1992. 28 August 1996 The Prince and Princess' divorce was finalised on 28 August 1996. Diana received a lump sum settlement of around £17,000,000 along with a legal gag order preventing her from discussing the details. The Princess was stripped of the style Her Royal Highness and instead was styled as Diana, Princess of Wales. However, since her death, Buckingham Palace has maintained that Diana was still, at the time, officially a member of the Royal Family, since she was the mother of the second- and third-in-line to the throne. This has since been confirmed by the Deputy Coroner of the Queen’s Household, Baroness Butler-Sloss, who after a pre-hearing on 8 January 2007 ruled that: "I am satisfied that at herdeath, Diana Princess of Wales continued to be considered as a member of the Royal Household." After the divorce, Diana retained her apartment on an upper floor of Kensington Palace, which remained her home until her death. 31 August 1997 On 31 August 1997 Diana was killed in a high speed car accident in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris along with Dodi Al-Fayed and their driver Henri Paul. Blood analysis shows that Henri Paul was legally intoxicated while driving. Tests confirmed that original postmortem blood samples were from driver Henri Paul, and that he had three times the French legal limit of alcohol in his blood. Conspiracy theorists had claimed that Paul's blood samples were swapped with blood from someone else—who was drunk—and contended that the driver had not been drinking on the night Diana died. Their Mercedes-Benz S280 sedan crashed on the thirteenth pillar of the tunnel. The two-lane tunnel was built withoutmetal barriers between the pillars, so a slight change in vehicle direction could easily result in a head-on collision with the tunnel pillar. Fayed's bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was closest to the point of impact and yet the only survivor of the crash. No-one in the car was wearing a seatbelt. Henri Paul and Dodi Fayed were killed instantly, and Diana—unbelted in the back seat—slid forward during the impact and, having been violently thrown around the interior, "submarined" under the seat in front of her, suffering massive damage to her heart and subsequent internal bleeding. She was transported by ambulance to the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, but on the way to casualty went into cardiac arrest twice. Despite lengthy resuscitation attempts, including internal cardiac massage, she died at 4 a.m. local time. The death of Diana has been the subject of widespread conspiracy theories, supported by Mohamed Al-Fayed, whose son died in the accident. These were rejected by French investigators and British officials, who stated that the driver, Henri Paul, was drunk and on drugs. Blood tests later verified that Henri Paul was drunk at the time of the accident. Nonetheless, in 2004 the authorities ordered an independent inquiry by Lord Stevens, a former chief of the Metropolitan Police, and he suggested that the case was "far more complex than any of us thought" and reported "new forensic evidence" and witnesses. The French authorities have also decided to reopen the case. Lord Stevens' report, Operation Paget, was published on December 14, 2006. Within seconds of the crash, the paparazzi had surrounded the Mercedes, and proceeded to take pictures of the dying princess. Not one called for medical assistance. On 13 July 2006 Italian magazine Chi published photographs showing Diana in her "last moments" despite an unofficial blackout on such photographs being published. The photographs were taken minutes after the accident and show the Princess slumped in the back seat while a paramedic attempts to fit an oxygen mask over herface. The photographs were also published in other Italian and Spanish magazines and newspapers. The editor of Chi defended his decision by saying he published the photographs for the "simple reason that they haven't been seen before" and that he felt the images do not disrespect the memory of the Princess. The British media publicly refused to publish the images, with the exception of the United Kingdom's tabloid newspaper, The Sun, which printed the picture but with the face blacked out. 06 September 1997 Her funeral on 6 September 1997 was broadcast and watched by an estimated two and a half billion people worldwide. Diana's final resting place is in the grounds of Althorp Park, her family home. The original plan was for her to be buried in the Spencer family vault at the local church in nearby Great Brington, but Diana's brother, Charles, the 9th Earl Spencer, said that he was concerned about public safety and security and the onslaught of visitors that might overwhelm Great Brington. He decided that he wanted his sister to be buried where her grave couldbe easily cared for and visited in privacy by her sons and other relations, although he has been accused of profiteering. Lord Spencer selected a memorial burial site on an island in an ornamental lake known as The Oval within Althorp Park's Pleasure Garden. A path with thirty-six oak trees, marking each year of her life, leads to the Oval. Four black swans swim in the lake, symbolizing sentinels guarding the island. In the water there are several water lilies. White roses and lilies were Diana's favourite flowers. On the southern verge of the Round Oval sits the Summerhouse, previously in the gardens of Admiralty House, London, and now serving as a memorial to Diana. An ancient arboretum stands nearby, which contains trees planted by Prince William and Prince Harry, other members of her family and the Princess herself. London, 6 September 1997 - A funeral service for Diana, Princess of Wales was held at Westminster Abbey in London this morning. In memory of her, almost everyone across the country and beyond stops what they are doing and join together for collective prayers, mourning and remembrance. Millions line the streets for teh service and the route of the funeral cortege with flowers strewn on the route by the mourners. It is a collective moment of national grieving. 29 January 2001 BBC News: A memorial in honour of Diana, Princess of Wales, is to be built in London's Hyde Park, the government has announced. This will pay tribute to her life and work and act as a monument to her efforts. The £3m fountain will be built on the site of a derelict pump house and chlorination plant on the banks of the Serpentine - the 40-acre artificial lake in the royal park. July - August, 2004 The Memorial was closed on 22nd July after three consecutive slippage incidents in a specific area of the Memorial. There is quite a lot of public debate as to whether the memorial is the best way of paying tribute to her life and a number of practical problems with the fountain lead to repairs and alterations having to be made. Whilst she remains loved by all she still seems to be at the centre of public debate even now.
Condolences
Time is too slow for those that wait, Too swift for those that fear, Too long for those that grieve, Too short for those who rejoice, But for those who love, time is Eternity. Sent by rachel king on 22/02/2007 Bravo Millie! This is a splendid virtual memorial to Diana, you have talked about doing this for so long and I am so glad you have finally succeeded. And my, what a success, it looks simply marvellous. Well done. Fondest regards, Peter Sent by Peter Salisbury on 21/02/2007 We think of you and your poor brave boys often. You gave so much warmth and dedication to the world and were so beautiful. Sent by Sally James on 21/02/2007 Diana you are an inspiration to all of us. And perhaps if we *all* tried to change the world to be a better place, it would be. Thank you for showing us your kindness. You truly were loved by all the people. Sent by Marcus Wilton on 15/02/2007 This tribute is for everyone, by everyone. Please send your thoughts, your stories and pictures in memory of Diana's life if you can. We will remember her together. Thank you. Sent by Millie on 15/02/2007 A thought for you now and everyday. You are sadly missed and will always be the queen of our hearts. Sent by Millie on 08/02/2007
Millie's Blog
21 February 2007 I have spent the last couple of weeks trying to find as many pictures of Diana as I can, particularly the more telling, or perhaps that should be more personal, images of when she was younger. She did not know her future then, the happiness, the majesty, the celebrity and ultimately the tragedy, and I find these pictures especially poignant both because of this, and because I know her path. The pictures are so natural, so unassuming, just like those taken of a million children when they are young. It seems odd seeing these and thinking that much of her later life was consumed with either presenting such a carefully constructed public image, or trying to hide from photographers trying to catch her doing something relatively ordinary, like jogging or sunbathing. I hope people will send me more photos of her when she was young. Everyone has been wonderful sending me things over the years, but these younger photos are often hard to come by, unsurprisingly I suppose. It does make me realise that I must take more pictures of my own children and grandchildren; I have been snapping away quite merrily over the past few weeks! It's interesting that finally creating a tribute in memory of Diana has actually affected how I live my own life now. Another thing to thank her for. 03 February 2007 We had terrible trouble finding a place to create my online memorial to Lady Diana. I felt that somewhere on the internet there must exist a website where you could create lasting memorials to your loved ones or, in this case, heroine; to my surprise we were not disappointed by a lack of tribute sites, instead I was actually shocked by how many we found. And do forgive me for saying so, but the vast majority were thoughtlessly made, insensitive and, well, quite frankly uncommonly ugly! So it was with a huge relief that after a little searching and testing we eventually found www.muchloved.com. Here they offer inexpensive but lasting tributes and the designs are beautiful. Unlike many of the other memorial websites, MuchLoved is also a charity which was important to me. Setting up the tribute was incredibly easy, everything is very well thought out and a pleasure to use. Choosing from the designs was hard as they are all lovely, I feel that Lady Diana would have approved of my final choice as she loved white flowers. I think the tribute will look simply wonderful when I have added more pictures and its so easy to do this and organise them in the Library that even I can do it, which has pleased Nathaniel no end! 15 December 2006 It was my grandson, little Nathaniel, who originally suggested that I setup an online tribute to Diana. He is extraordinary with computers. His hands fly about the keyboard like socks on a washing line flapping in a gale. He has got me all plugged in and using the internet over the last few years, which I greatly enjoy (except when website owners use extremely small fonts not entirely legible for us "silver surfers"!). I have made many friends, found out some extremely interesting and quite odd things and I now am quite au fait with using emails (although I do occasionally send some to the wrong person; which drives Nathaniel positively insane). He has even tried to school me in creating web pages but I feel this is beyond me, but talking to him about the internet I felt I wanted to setup a lasting tribute to Diana. She has increasingly become a heroine of mine; a people's Princess who did not enjoy a fairy tale life. Nathaniel felt this would be too complicated for me to do on my own from scratch and I am inclined to agree (and was secretly very relieved!). And so, together, we set about researching to see if there were any online memorial services that offered the chance to build an online memorial, in a way that some one like me could manage, but one that I could still make look and feel how I wanted. It was a tall order and I didn't hold out much hope at first!
Diana on...
Diana, on Becoming a true Princess "I remember when I used to sit on beds and hold people’s hands, people used to be shocked because they'd never seen this before. To me it was quite normal." Diana, on Touching "Yes, I do touch. I believe that everyone needs that" Diana, on Hugging "Hugs can do great amounts of good -- especially for children" Diana, on suffering "Anywhere I see suffering, that is where I want to be, doing what I can." In loving memory of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Caron Keating Memorial Book Extracts
Below are some memorable and also inspirational extracts that relate to her life, bereavement, grieving and her fight with cancer:
Foreword
You cannot see or touch me, But I'm standing next to you.Your tears can only hurt me,Your sadness makes me blue. Be brave and show a smiling face, Let not your grief show through. I love you from a different place,Yet I'm standing next to you.
About Cancer
Caron was reading about Caroline Aherne's infamous question to Debbie McGee: 'So, Debbie, what first attracted you to multimillionaire Paul Daniels?'. She would later write how odd it was that she was engaged in something so trivial when Russ came in to tell her something so profound and life changing. "Oncology is not a word I think i'd ever come across before and now is one with which I am all too familiar - still don't really know what it means, other than someone who has a variety of invasive treatments at his disposal. A sort of Atilla the Hun of the medical world." I wonder if there wasn't a more fundamental reason for Caron not to acknowledge publicly that she had cancer. I wonder if the secret she was really keeping was the one from herself. For all her bravado and positive thinking, underneath it all she was petrified of dying, petrified of leaving her family and the boys. With his sudden gloomy outlook, the doctor had effectively signed my daughter's death warrant. 'You have absolutely demolished her confidence,' I told him. 'She has been positive from the beginning and you have annihilated that in one tiny bombshell of a sentence.'
Searching for a Cure
She became worried about electricity waves so she took the TV out of her bedroom. She became nervous of the studios she worked in. She took everything on board in terms of her well-being - sight, sound, smell, light, everything. It was Caron doing what Caron did: being practical and taking action. I think the heardest thing of Caron's entire battle was thinking the cancer was her fault. She said over and over again to her friends, 'I have to find the reason for this. If I find the reason I can deal with it.' She was always having treatments of one kind or another. She was into doing a daily yoga session, acupuncture, oxygen treatment, reiki, body electronics, sound healing, reflexology and colonic irrigation. She was busy healing, so we got busy in the house, with the boys, and were always on stand by to drive her to whatever treatment it was that day. I liked it: it made me feel as if i was doing something to help. Caron took herself to some dark, lonely places when she could have been enveloped in her family and her husband's love. Maybe, just maybe, if she hadn't gone on that journey she wouldn't have survived as long as she did. Maybe it was the process of asking the questions that kept her alive: her investigative mind desired to find an answer, and that desire was stronger than the destructive power of cancer.
Human Spirit
The thing I love about the human spirit is that, no matter how dire the circumstances, there always comes a point when you can have a laugh and forget about what's happening for a minute. It was about this time that she and Russ started talking about death, although always in an indirect way. They were organic conversations that just happened. Were they conscious or unconscious? We will never know. They were playing with both sides of the coin: remaining positive while accepting the inevitable.
The Sun Never Sets - Her Final Days
Halfway across France, Caron suddenly came to. She rose from the brink, looked at Russ and smiled. There had been numerous times over the last six months when Russ had thought, This is it, then watched in amazement as Caron got up the following day, smiling again, better. Although he can't remember the specifics of what was said, he knows it still never reached a dramatic 'I am Dying' moment. It was softer than that. Kinder. What they did was reminisce. They laughed about some of the strange and funny things they had done together. Their time in Cornwall. Their adventures in Australia. In this magic capsule, suspended in time, they discussed all they had achieved. Once they had crossed the channel it was almost as if Caron knew she was home. Her body relaxed. It was a surreal experience for Russ: it wasn't as if their lives had flashed before them, but somehow they had said goodbye. It was peaceful. It was diabolical. There is not a word in the world to describe how it feels to watch your child die. It wasn't that my heart was breaking, rather that my soul was shattering. I was dying with her, but, unlike Caron, my body wouldn't let me go.
Creating your own memorial tribute
If you would like to find out more about creating your own tribute to someone you loved and still love or want to find out what you can put in your tribute please use these links or else visit the MuchLoved website home page at www.muchloved.com
