The People’s Princess…

I wrote about my birthday yesterday.

In 1997, my birthday was the day before Lady Diana's death, I was 32 years old. I remember that day well, hearing it on the news, flicking channels in disbelief, waiting for her death to be confirmed, quietly hoping that her condition had been exaggerated.

The days that followed felt so intrusive. Seeing her and Dodi Fayed leaving the Ritz Hotel. Security footage replayed endlessly of them climbing into a Mercedes.  Then the pictures, of the wreck in the Pont de l'Alma tunnel.

Back then we had much less exposure to the finer details of the world than we do now.  We were really just starting to overstep the confines of privacy. I felt like a voyeur.  It was perhaps the first time that I felt I had been privy to too much personal information.  Oddly I felt guilty by association.

To see all walks of life coming together on such a global level was humbling. The footage of the mourners, crowds that went on indefinitely, a sea of flowers, and the silence. It was the silence that struck me, an eerie silent hysteria.  It was also the first time that I had really witnessed that type of humanity.  Not a single breach of respect.

The funeral, the Princes, the sheer outpouring of grief, the universality, I'd not encountered this type of tragedy . I’d heard of JFKs assasination, I was familiar with the history, a where were you when you heard phenomena.

Dianas death was my lifes JFK moment. There were other tragedies prior, Elvis’s death, John Lennon’s, but I wasn’t really at an age to comprehend on the level I was, in my thirties. My next where was I moment would be 9/11.

Diana’s death came at an age where I was able to really take in the magnitude of the effect that she had on everyday people, she had captivated them. She was a breath of fresh air in what seemed like an archaic institution. She was hope for a more unified existence.

In the weeks that followed I felt somewhat guilty for not knowing more about the woman she was. We find out so much about people after they pass. I don’t really put people on a pedestal, regardless of what they have or who they are, our internal struggles are the same. Sure money and fame make those struggles easier, but that doesn’t change the struggles, and hers were relatable.

She would be 61. I wonder what might have been next for her, had fate not have stepped in.

I've read of her darker side, her propensity to embellish the truth. It's hard to know how we might behave if our lives revolved around the approval of others on a grand scale. If our every move was scrutinised.

I know that my sentimentality often overrides peoples flaws, but that's because we all have them. We all have parts of ourselves we are not proud of. Regardless of Lady Diana's flaws, and they have been well documented, it would seem that the positives that she brought to the world, far outweigh the negatives.

Her legacy remains, that of the people's Princess.