My Mother, Diana (Royal Documentary) | Real Stories

prince william's marriage to kate middleton marks the beginning of a new and independent stage of his life william is the new face of the monarchy for the 21st century on the surface william appears to be a product of the old order groomed to be king by the house of windsor but william is the son of diana the woman who transcended celebrity and transformed the monarchy the influence of his mother is going to be special she opened his eyes to the other side of life it's easy to forget that william's formative years took place in the crossfire of the war of the waleses prince william and prince harry the the children of a broken home not just any old broken um possibly the most acrimonious and bitter separation and divorce in royal history diana's life was steeped in controversy said you're a loose cannon the house of windsor tried to disown her but the media were obsessed with her how has the life and tragedy of diana influenced william and will william be the king his mother wanted him to be like his parents 30 years ago william agreed to a television interview on the day his engagement was announced william's mother was this massive iconic figure the most famous figure of our age is that worrying is that is that intimidating does that does that do you think about that a lot both of you you particularly kate obviously well obviously it'd be um i would love to have met her um and and she's obviously she's an inspirational woman to to look up to and you know very inspirational so um yeah i do can you find the words to sum up how you feel today both of you just delighted and happy and i suppose in love of course whatever in love means [Music] the story of william and his mother diana begins 30 years ago [Music] she seemed like a perfect bride for prince charles she was young attractive she had the right background and we were told that the right background in 1981 meant a member of the aristocracy i'm not gonna say anything prince charles did give us a hint himself he said we wouldn't have to wait too long that was a girl who really wanted to become princess of wales and nobody you know she wasn't going to upset anybody on the way [Applause] the perfect marriage was watched by billions of people around the world it was the last great royal wedding to galvanize the british public [Music] she emerged from this wonderful glass coach she was on the arm of her elderly father who had suffered a stroke and he did his damnedest to be up to take her down the aisle and everyone was with him every inch as he walked her up the aisle and she had this amazing breath she was wearing this endless train and creases and lots of little pretty little um bridesmaids running around at her feet here is the stuff of which fairy tales are made it did seem like a fairy tale suddenly the world seemed electrified by diana [Music] no other role remember the royal family mattered that year or i think for for the next 17 years it was just her within three months she became pregnant with prince william it was a boy it secured the line um charles had done his duty diana had provided him with a son at the age of only 20 diana had responsibility for bringing up a future king [Music] her first real encounter with the media was in australia on her first ever royal tour and i remember meeting her then for the first time and she was very nervous she was very jittery [Music] when diana was unsure of what to do on the walkabout charles sent her off on her own but diana had not expected the level of interest in her it would have been far easier to have two wives to have covered both sides of the street the tour of australia and new zealand was a real right of passage in a real ordeal and she was helped to overcome that ordeal with the fact that prince william was with them on the royal tour at the age of nine months prince william was launched onto the world stage [Music] does prince william have a favorite toy jamie he loves his koala bear he's got day after day the only question she was ever asked was how is william and she loved to respond to that she emerged a very confident young woman [Music] they were halcyon days that period between william's birth in 1982 and harry's arrival in september 84. they seemed a happy young family we know that um charles was helping out in the nursery he was cutting short his engagements to be back in time for bath time dan was determined he should be involved in the early stages of of william's life quite unlike his own upbringing [Music] another part of william's upbringing involved having to appear in front of the cameras [Music] but there was a problem within the family that would make the cameras a much more intrusive part of his life diana's weight loss of course did get a lot of mention i mean she she became stick thin there was concern but it was it was explained away by the palace at the time and we accepted what they said that it was simply the stress of of new motherhood coping with a baby coping with life in in the royal goldfish bowl [Applause] in september 1984 there was another addition to the whales's but it was not the daughter that charles wanted when harry was born prince charles is quite dismissive of both her and the baby and she as she said to me something inside me died and the shutters came down rumors about the state of the wales marriage really began from about 1985 onwards and certainly by 1986 i remember that already um newspapers were sort of counting the days when not when charles and diana were apart but when they were actually together the royal couple gave their marriage very little opportunity to flower and to flourish they were together effectively as a couple for only three or four years although her marriage was disintegrating diana imposed her influence on william's upbringing unlike the four-year-old prince charles prince william was not going to be educated at home by a governess i recalled the first day vividly diana said to william who was you know dressed immaculately school uniform you've got to be you know brave now because when we arrive there they're going to be probably 120 photographers you know so and that's what you're going to probably get now for the rest of your life of course he turned out and said i don't like photographers we arrived at the school donna did her professional piece of that smile because william completely ignored it just climb the steps we quickly go into this reception room where all these uh mums and their new kids there of course williams stood still and you could see it that the parents dressed in their finery were desperately edging their son forward to be the first to say hello to william but there were very few days in in william's early schooling that the diana didn't go with him i mean william was you know as a young boy seemed to be much more reserved was i suppose in a way slightly sly character never quite knew what you were going to get with william say from his brother who was much more overt you know harry would say to his brother you know oh it's all right for you you know you'll be king one day i won't be so there i can do what i want so at a very young age prince william knew that he was somebody special i feel that royal duty in a way is is slightly more inbred it has to be i mean it has to be trained in a way diana had done her duty by providing an air and despair but now there was something that was going to break the golden rule of duty first when william was six the marital problems between his parents came to a head the journalists although they suspected pretty much 90 percent knew that charles returned to camilla parker bowles that nobody could write it and so the public were completely left in the dark at the beginning of 1989 diana decided to confront charles and his mistress on one evening diana went with the prince of wales to the 40th birthday of camilla's sister she said to me you know the prince doesn't want me to come but i'm going she said because i know camilla's going to be there almost immediately i heard diana shouting my name outside and uh i said okay what's going on you know he said oh well she said um i can't find the princess ken i can't see camilla either and i need to go and find them we descended some stairs to a basement and there was the prince of wales sat with camilla i mean just talking and diana was incredibly bold and i you know i hadn't seen her do this before dinah said something like look i know this has been going on for some time you know and why do you do it and to do very sort of stony faced people you know camilla was the one that said well it's all right for you you you've got you know two lovely boys and so forth as if that excused what was happening and it was quite bizarre it's incredibly uncomfortable for me and i left this had sealed in dialers of ideas and that that any chance of a reconciliation now is finished [Music] at the age of eight william began his life as a boarder at lug grove school unaware that his mother was planning to break a royal taboo that would drastically change the future king's life generations of future kings before him william's life is taking on a familiar pattern his loyalty to the house of winds are unquestioning but william spent his formative years caught in the crossfire his parents public feud the war of the wales prince william and prince harry their their children have a broken home um for not just any old broken possibly the most acrimonious and bitter separation and divorce in royal history i would date the war the whales is from diana's 30th birthday so july the first 1991. prince charles leaked a story that he had been prepared to give his wife a party just to show that everything was fine with the marriage but he wanted to throw her 30th birthday party for her and she turned it down she didn't want it whilst waiting on the royal yacht britannia to join his parents tour of canada william was about to become an unwitting porn in the royal feud and unlike the nine-year-old prince some of the media had begun to take sides diana just ignored all the dignitaries that were lined up to meet them and rushed up the gangplank to meet the children embrace them as a famous picture of them her arms out embracing them what nobody really saw was that a few seconds later after charles had shaken all the hands of all the dignitaries he went up and embraced the children exactly the same way with the same degree of love and warmth but nobody took that photograph what was also unseen was the effect their parents marital difficulties were having on william and harry as the children were growing up they could sense this what was going on the stony silences the shouting matches the fact that diana would retreat to the bathroom in tears and on one occasion i remember william pushed some tissues under under the bathroom door saying please don't cry mommy she felt so desperate so alone so constrained by this system some of the people who knew her very well were genuinely found that she was on the edge and on the edge of taking her own life it was clear they were major problems but the assumption always was in those days was that this is the prince of wales he's the heir to the throne they can't separate on the verge of self-destruction as a last resort diana decided that if the royal family could not help her she would turn to the public at home in kensington palace diana secretly recorded the intimate details of her family life the tapes were smuggled out by an intermediary and passed on to a freelance journalist andrew morton [Music] i first heard about the name camilla parker-bowles in a working man's cafe in rise lip in north london and i met the intermediary there a chap called james coldheart and he played me the first tape and i put the headphones on all around me these guys are eating bacon and eggs and i was listening to these tapes and it was astonishing i felt i'd gone through a looking glass into a different world two weeks before william's tenth birthday diana my true story was serialized in a national sunday newspaper diana had become a whistleblower and had gone public with her account of life within the house of windsor seismic it really was at the time i mean for the first time someone had got people friends of a member of the royal family talking on the record about the most intimate aspect of this person's life namely diana's marriage it exposed it for what it was the sham that it had become the unhappiness the misery that she was suffering the morton book actually confirmed and identified to the world from the very person herself look i've got a problem here in a way the book was her release valve the night of the first sunday time serialization uh diana cole james said that she's had the best night's sleep she's had in years diana had gone to bed unaware that she'd opened pandora's box following the serialization of the morton book the press interest in diana scaled new heights the gloves came off people were obsessed i mean the the interest was was phenomenal the crowds of journalists that turned up to cover every event involving diana four days later during a visit to a hospice in southport the pressure on her was visible for all to see [Music] [Applause] life could never be the same for diana or her son william on holidays for example william would say to them oh we're not going to get any photographers turn up however because you need a holiday as if he was saying look you need help here you know and i hope they don't turn up for your sake so when the press did turn up it wasn't a hatred of them it was more concerned for her that he had a problem you notice in a lot of the photographs and the footage that he's whenever he's near his mother is checking to see that she's okay which i think is a a really nice sign from the little boy it is announced from buckingham palace that with regret the prince and princess of wales have decided to separate this decision has been reached admittedly and they will both continue to participate fully in the upbringing of their children diana told me that they together sat down and explained the circumstances of why you know we as your mother and father are no longer going to live together because there has been a breakdown in our relationship which sadly happens in life so yes they were told about it but but given the environment which they live in there was too much going on really for them to go and sit down in front of the television or something and groan and moan about it [Music] [Applause] [Music] she once said to me that she she wanted william to see a life that was not just four by four range rovers uh holidays uh abroad and country house estates she wanted him to witness the full panoply of what is modern britain today so she took them to amusement parks she took them for hamburgers it was very clear to me that that diana wanted them to be in the brackets normal you know don't say come on we're going to go down to mcdonald's or we can we're going to find something from marks and spencer's in kensington high street so this this whole idea of trying to do things with him that other people did was was very much of of diana's insistence i mean i remember you know the prince of wales hearing that william had been to mcdonald's and had been to marx and spencers and you know would say you know why do you need to go there i recall you know both william harry enjoying these these breakouts from from from a royal palace [Music] [Applause] [Music] as well as making life fun for william diana is keen to show william another side of life far far away from the royal palaces i remember taking william very early in the morning away from the glare of the cameras to the passage day center to hand out clothing to hand out food and so forth i remember you know william there handing out a tea and a coffee or something and this one guy came up having spent the night on the street and said uh give me that you know you know i'm not interested in you and he knew exactly who it was and this was quite a an opening quite an awakening for william and and i remember in the comments saying you see william you see this is what happens not everybody likes us [Music] this was part of dialer's education wanted him to see what other people did william and harry between the separation and the divorce were moving from one parent to another and there was concern that they were being too indulged as many separated parents do they try and win the favors of of the other but significantly both william and harry were moving more into their father's orbit it was great fun for prince william he was introduced to some of his fathers in country pursuits that was quite interesting to him you know it was very very exciting for him so he he started i think initially he was very much his mother's son his mummy's boy if you like going you know who's spending a lot of time with her but then there was a moment of change um and that i think upset darling this tug of war to win the hearts and minds of william and harry was conducted in private but what would affect william's upbringing much more profoundly was the war his parents began to win the hearts and minds of the public [Music] [Applause] well i'm not surprised you score a goal actually let's see right yeah if i just make a nuisance for myself who needs them to be also yes that's not very difficult [Music] in 1994 when william was 12 charles retaliated against diana for the morton book and became the first prince of wales to go public about his mistress did you try to be faithful to your wife yes absolutely and you were yes [Music] until it became irretrievably broken down prince charles took away the fig leaf when he went on television was interviewed by jonathan dimbleby and confessed his adultery with camilla parker bowles it was the first time he'd made a tacit admission about his relationship with camilla we all went to see a preview of the documentary and i remember just racing out of that uh preview um trying to make sure we got the transcript absolutely spot on because you know this was the most amazing event the future king admitting that he had an adulterous affair with a married woman the program would relaunch hostilities with diana on a scale previously thought to be inconceivable when william was sent to eaton at 13 an informal deal was struck with the press to leave him alone but while the cameras were kept away from william his mother was secretly inviting the bbc's panorama team into kensington palace the dim will be interviewed gave diner the signal for her to go on television herself in a kind of repulsed panorama what a surprise i know why she did it it was all part of her sort of retaliating one year 18 months on from charles's dimbleby interview which she found very upsetting my impression was she had manipulated how she looked in it that she from everything from the way she dressed to the way she made up to her facial expressions after the martin bashir interview diana regretted one thing and that was talking about james hewitt and her affair with him i think the reason diana felt that she'd done the wrong thing by speaking about james hewitt in her famous television interview was impact on the boys she told the boys that she was seeing james in order to teach the boys how to ride then the penny dropped she had been using william and harry as kind of like cover for her affair because she was telling them at the time oh he's teaching me how to ride prince william knew that was a lie and when he met her eaton where he was then a border he wouldn't speak to her for a few days because he was just so upset at the [Music] deception diana always felt that in the court of public opinion she would triumph that was her modus operandi she felt that by giving the television interview she could speak over the heads of the royal family and connect with the people she also admitted in the interview that she there were three of us in this marriage she said but more importantly than that i think because we all sort of already knew that um i think more importantly was the her rapier thrust at charles in which basically effectively said he didn't want the job and he wasn't suitable for the job it wouldn't suit charles to be the king and so she was declaring oh william should be the next king i mean it was a huge moment not only in television but also for prince william which a lot of people then followed and actually supported that view now that was an awful lot of pressure being placed upon the shoulders of a young boy as well as questioning his father's right to rule as king the panorama interview set and train a series of events that would culminate in tragedy for his mother no question panorama led directly to the divorce within a month the queen had written to both of them charles and i and said this has got to end you must be divorced diana's greatest fear was losing access and control of her children because in law the queen can actually take custody of the heirs to the throne that is to say william and harry [Music] she's here now on the day the divorce she never wanted was finalized diana princess of wales as she now is on familiar ground feeling desperate during the divorce diana turned to friends who could offer a sympathetic ear once it was finalized the biggest relief was that she was going to be allowed to to have the children because she would give everything in the world to have those boys she she loved them to the ends of the earth diana was still allowed to see the children but she was no longer part of the royal family which would bring to the surface the issue of divided loyalties for william you know even to a boy of 1995 he was 13. he would have seen that his mother was criticizing his father and he loved both his parents and it must have been very confusing for him you can't really tell the impact it would have had upon william the breakup of his parents marriage but his behavior at school changed i remember i wasn't working as a newspaper reporter and i had a tip that he'd been involved in a fight at school now at the time i thought this was a great story you know for the tabloid newspaper i was working for william in fight at school ticked off by the headmaster but actually what i found out subsequent to that was that the boy that he got involved in a fight with had been um ridiculing william about his parents breakup and so it must have impacted on him although the occasional story surfaced about william at eaton he was still far away from the media spotlight the only time the press came to visit was when his mother called on his 14th birthday it was a gentle reminder that his mother was still the biggest celebrity in the world even after the divorce she was like a magnet to the media she would always go with um a press pack of at least 30 people she was a big story she sold photographs around the world in huge colossal numbers i mean she was an industry a one-woman industry if you like and there were a lot of photographers who who got rich just photographing princess diana it was like a drug you get more and more pictures of this woman you know she she looked a million dollars and you just couldn't stop yourself you know there was still major interest in her more interest in her than any member of the royal family it was almost as if she had her own court and she was a star in that court [Music] to cope with this press obsession diana recruited an experienced pr consultant as a media advisor the princess was followed by the media everywhere that she went they waited outside kensington palace and they would hop on scooters and follow cars it was difficult it was obsessional officer can you move it was you know 24 hours a day but it wasn't life-threatening [Music] she was very cute about it very knowledgeable about it she knew them all she knew all the cars that followed her she knew all the scooters that followed her and she kind of handled it very well and she always looked immaculate and knew you know that she was going to be photographed i always saw it as a bit of a gray period in her life diana's alone in in a pretty hostile world diana we have to remember had discarded her police bodyguard taking considerable risk in my view at times for diana the rules of engagement with the press had changed [Music] could i ask you to respect my children's space as a parent i want to protect children thank you when william was on holiday with his mother he could see that in the land of the celebrity there were no rules [Music] his mother's life was trouble it was always trouble with a capital t but with with papa with with prince charles he could get away from all that and there was a degree of freedom he relished [Music] diana couldn't do things with the boys that charles could do diana didn't have royal homes dotted around the country she didn't have wide open spaces for them to run around in knowing they wouldn't be photographed and the boys look forward to that hugely [Music] in contrast to their mother photo shoots with their father were rare controlled and agreed with the press [Music] but back at eaton it was impossible for william to ignore the strange world of his celebrity mother when he was 14 stories began to surface in the newspapers about relationships his mother was alleged to be having although the school went to great lengths to ensure he didn't see the daily newspapers when there might be something offensive to him in them um it was hard to blot out everything and also his friend saw things his the parents of his friends saw things if william didn't like the stories appearing in the press neither did diana so she decided to leak her own oh diana managed to get stories leaked out through me and through other people richard cape was the journalist she told everything to it's no secret on one occasion i was photographed getting into into her car and we'd arranged him to meet somewhere unlikely like around the back of paddington station she was extremely careful about what she said to me about her private life because of what i did i mean where she could help me would be if someone had reported that she was seeing x and she wasn't or she would tell me that's not true although diana could trust some journalists to write her version of the truth she struggled to find someone amongst a sea of friends whom she could confide in diana had a very hard time trusting people because obviously being in that position who's your friend there's many single parents find who are going through a divorce you tend to rely more on your children william became less of her son needing her advice and more of an adviser to her [Music] diana was thinking a lot about her future how she could strike out on her own and you know talking about getting rid of her some of her clothes and prince william famously said well why don't you auction them off and and give the proceeds to charity 85 000 100 000. 65 175 i knew she was going to say that 200 times the gowns were sold in new york and raised what four or five million pounds for charity we tend to think of her as you know just the gorgeous princess in glamorous gowns and tiaras but you know towards the end i think she discarded all that she was just out to try and make a difference a big difference princess diana did everything she could to make her children see that there was more beyond the monarchy that was more than being royal [Music] having discarded her gowns and tiaras diana began her new role to rid the world of landmines it would be her most controversial role to date angola had 15 million unexploded landmines just scattered in places young children playing football on the local village football pitch we're getting blown up i accompanied the princess as a member of the press to angola she had the bit between her teeth she seemed very determined to make a difference she ticked us off in the press a little bit saying that we'd focus too much on her clothes not the issues that mattered you knew that you were being in many ways as a member of the media being manipulated by her for her causes but you couldn't help yourself [Music] diana wasn't just showing william a role for a future king she was showing him how to walk a political tightrope the government ministers home has said you're a loose cannon by supporting this campaign do you have any reaction to that i'm only trying to highlight a problem that's going on all around the world that's all it's been said though that you're aligning yourself with labour policy do you think that's wise i don't know what you're talking about you're i don't i don't know there was a sort of naivety about diana that i thought was endearing it was what drove her what what enabled her to be compassionate there was a cynical view that her care and compassion were photo opportunities but i remember going to chicago with her to the northwestern hospital [Music] we were shown all over including the premature baby unit i was very unwilling to allow the photographs into that unit and so the cameras didn't go in there there was no difference to the way that she behaved with the mothers with the children with the compassion that she showed and the interest and the tenderness towards the children than if the cameras had been there she was genuinely you know that sort of person [Music] while diana was trying to show william how royal celebrity could be a force for change he was sheltered away at eaton but what happened next would not only help him understand compassion but would throw him right back into the media spotlight i want to welcome all of you and particularly our guest of honor diana princess of wales the metaphorical by the time william is 15 his mother had successfully forged a new role for herself outside the royal family but her life was becoming more unpredictable she had great deal of fulfillment in her public life in her public role but her private life was difficult i think it was always going to be difficult where do you go after you've been married to the heir to the british crown who'll take me on she would say who really in their right minds would take me on i think she was always looking for a man for the right man and and probably never found him in july 1997 diana took william and harry to stay with dodie fired at his father's villa in the south of france clearly she'd fallen for him in a big way who's worked in hollywood who's been used to to the to glamour and the cameras and and the life and in the public eye [Music] diana's time spent on the fired yacht of saint tropez was a final holiday with william and harry and her final act in the war of the wales's she was down in santro bay on that holiday with william and harry and she came over to our boat and she was so upset she's almost pleading with us why are we there and i said to her would you rather in the editor and see if we can perhaps pull out of here and she said well i don't really want that she said and then anyway she she went back in the boat she did this most beautiful dive into the sea [Music] and then she went over to where harry was on a jet ski and she got on the back of the jet ski and she just whirled round our boat on this jet ski giving this most amazing photo call so work that one out i can't i can still to this day can't work it out she only behaved like an aspiring starlet in san tropez because prince charles was hosting a 50th birthday party for camilla parker bowles i remember james culthurst asked her if prince charles came to you on bended knee would you take him back and she thought about it for a long moment and she said yes this accident happened in the early hours of this morning the pages started dancing on the wooden floors at about 1 30 in the morning i was asleep a colleague hammered on doors and windows until i woke up we're just receiving the the sad news that diana princess of wales has in fact princess of wales has died prince william was at balboa his father came in to his bedroom woke him in the morning and told him the news [Music] after years away from the glare of the media spotlight diana's death pushed the 15 year old william center stage by putting aside his private grief and stepping out to greet the public prince william had come of age they were going around looking at the flowers all their commemorations to their mother and a lady made a comment to william and then handed him some flowers thank you so much thank you very much he was just so polite and together it seemed extraordinary william really showed what strength he had [Music] on september the 6th 1997 millions of mourners around the world watched diana's funeral they also saw william waiting in the wings ready to follow his mother for the last [Music] time [Applause] fourteen years after his mother's death william has a prominent role as a member of the royal family but what will be the influence of diana's life on william will he want to follow in her footsteps clearly the influence of his mother is going to be special i mean she opened his eyes to the other side of life the first ever patriotist he assigned himself to was the center point center for the homeless because he will remember and reflect back to those days when his mother took him to the the passage day center to all the work that his mother had done for the homeless the aged the the dispossessed william has always been searching for normal he doesn't he wants to live a life less extraordinary he's found someone who doesn't necessarily have these emotional problems she doesn't come from a broken home she comes from a very solid middle class family very fact that he was able to meet fall in love and live a quite normal existence with kate shows that william benefited [Music] from that experience with diana and you produce the ring yeah there and then and it's a family ring it's a family yes it's my mother's engagement ring obviously she's not me around to share any of the um the fun excitement at all this is my way of keeping her sort of close to it all you

Channel: Real Stories

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Keywords: Documentaries, Full length Documentaries, the queen, monarchy, Channel 4 documentary, prince charles, Real Stories, BBC Three, 2017 documentary, prince william, BBC Three documentary, princess diana, Full Documentary, Amazing Documentaries, Extraordinary people, Documentary Movies - Topic, BBC documentary, BBC 3, royal family, england, Amazing Stories, britai, TV Shows - Topic, kate middleton, Documentary, royal marriage, prince harry and meghan markle, prince harry wedding

Id: BvR7vOx3ZBk

Length: 46min 28sec (2788 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2017