The Inspiring Story Of Princess Diana's Life | The People’s Princess | Real Royalty

[Music] the funeral of diana princess of wales on september the 6th 1997 was a huge and regal occasion millions lined the route and television stations the world over cleared their schedules to carry pictures of the young princes following the coffin on which lay a wreath of white orchids and rosebuds bearing the heartbreaking message mummy 100 million people astonished at the depth of their own reactions mourned a young woman who had been in the public eye for just 16 years but had in that short time earned the respect of statesmen world leaders the rich the famous but most of all everyone who came into contact with her and ordinary folk right around the world that is why she was mourned and still remembered as the people's princess diana was born into the ranks of the british aristocracy unlike many of her background she was sent away to boarding school diana's father told me that the best thing for diana to do was to go to riddlesworth school which was a very home-based prep school and very suitable for someone in diana's situation she also had friends there [Music] diana's father said that she perhaps out of all the children had been the most disturbed at the breakup of their marriage she was at the most susceptible age really [Music] the house that diana lived in with her father and sisters jane and sarah and younger brother charles was park house on the queen's estate at sandringham in norfolk diana's grandparents also courtiers had rented the house from king george v park house was a comfortable cosy home diana's father said that he was looking to make a warm happy atmosphere for the children to come home to and he was hoping i would stay really until charles her young brother went off to prep school which would give some sense of continuity because i found out that there had been quite a number of changes of help within the house and to a degree i think diana and charles used to club together and decide they didn't like a specific person not not for any major reason except that she wasn't the mother one two of the tricks that diana got up to for example she would lock the nannies in in the toilet and throw away the key she would go into their rooms which she wasn't really meant to do and get their clothes and throw up on the roof so that the man who worked there he had to clamber up and get them down [Music] norfolk is farming country flat and often windswept it was the rural landscape she liked we did lead a very country existence she was happiest just in trousers and an old top she wasn't in the least bit interesting clothes she absolutely hated dressing up on the few occasions i had struggled to get her into a dress or a skirt she would only go put these clothes on do i really have to do this and i don't see what matters what i'm wearing no one's going to look at me and as long as i'm there what does it matter she was just one of the others with a tatty pullover and long skirt i mean they were all terribly untidy at school and she was no exception diana was very much like any other child she knew the ways of boarding schools particularly as quite a number of her friends came it gives me great pleasure to open the hall and to wish miss raj every happiness in her retirement my years at west teeth were certainly very happy once indeed i made many friends who i often see and in spite of what miss raj and my other teachers may have thought at the time i did actually learn something so you would never have known by my o level results she was often slightly in the background with a smile on her face as though she was just going to be very naughty which she usually was she was always bringing back food illegally to eat when they're not supposed to take it bring it back and have midnight feasts in bedrooms perhaps now when future generations are handed out punishments for talking after lights pillow fights and illegal food they will be told to run six times round this hall she was one of the regular squad who weeded the gardens with me on saturdays as a punishment it has to be preferable to the cross fish or weeding the garden which i became a great expert at i think they preferred reading the garden to running around the cross pitch that generally happened before breakfast and was colder and more active and she was involved in that too diana's main love was to be outside with her animals she had a guinea pig that she was extremely proud of called peanuts she used to nurture a tremendous amount of love and care on this guinea pig peanuts went to school with diana came home from school with diana was entered in the flower show which we held annually and won prizes for diana and diana would be out playing with these animals or helping mr smith uh who used to work outside in the gardens or trying to help mrs smith who used to work in the house she diana always loved to be doing things she really didn't mind what she was asked to do as long as it was practical and she felt she was helping the leggett cup is awarded every term for helpfulness she loved being domestic and doing just helping out and doing things like that the domestic staff always loved having her around whereas they hated having other some other people around helpfulness is rewarded well done clementine has always asked me about the house and she was much better at cleaning than i ever was she was only mine this little girl with her mousy shoulder-length brown hair it saved me from quite a few problems with her father by going around checking on my dusting etc naturally i talked about what she enjoyed doing most and her favorite subject her favorite subject was basically swimming or anything outside she was a very good swimmer she spent a lot of her time practicing both at school and at home but she was even better at diving one of the things that stand out most my mind was of the young diana standing on top of the waterslide shouting look at me look at me and only when she had everyone watching her would she then execute this most fantastic dive into the pool she truly could go into the water without making a splash in an absolutely straight line she was very very good and she loved it dinah loved to be the center of attention if she was confident and knew all the people around her then she was extremely extrovert she was only shy when she didn't know the people around her she had that element of shyness which we never broke through she had a really lovely singing voice we'd heard her when she didn't know we were listening but we we couldn't get her into the choir she was too shy to take the audition dancing of course was her real forte and she was very gifted or rather as far as a tall long-legged person can be gifted she's very graceful and a joy to watch and she spent a lot of time just practicing by herself she'd get up early and just go and practice we did lots of ballet music because that was another interest of hers the main piece that i remember was a piano duet by forzak which is the slavonic dance in g minor which is pretty difficult and she was determined to learn it and she did and she played it with great brilliance wrong notes everywhere lots and lots of laughter but really a musical performance [Music] [Applause] after school came the challenge of work for diana upperclass people in england has us have a sort of service tradition what sometimes called no bless oblige they also have a tradition of doing absolutely mad jobs like silly jobs non-jobs nobody thought that diana would get a phd or an mba or runner an international corporation that wasn't the idea the idea was be in london meet people have a good time do something useful and then get married to somebody she knew diana was a nanny from heaven she was openly affectionate with patrick genuinely warm she'd scoop him up every morning when she came into work she would stand with him on her hip talking to me and in my bedroom as i finished getting dressed um at the end of the day he was clearly just as happy as he could be you know it was it was very clear to me as a mother that he'd had a wonderful eight hours with her you know i knew this was the right nanny for my my son can i ask you was your own childhood particularly oh yes did that prompt you into wanting to do it just love children she was the most helpful sweet accommodating youngster she would wash up the breakfast dishes or run a load of laundry without my even asking her make up the beds um tidy up the toys and so on and one of the sweetest things she did was she had a car in london i didn't so she would pick up stuff that she knew it was hard for me to get home with us you know pushing a stroller and hauling bulky items from the store again didn't have to ask her she just did it to be nice she knew all the right people she was connected with the royal family and they thought that she would as they say in england know the form diana went out of her way to be vague about exactly where she lived where her hair was done where she spent her weekends she would answer things very non-committally and briefly my job was primarily to find who the prince of wales was going to make his call he was going to greet his wife prince charles had said that 30 was a good age to get married and he was about 28. so the picture at the time said well let's have a look at him see what's uh what he's doing after she'd been working for me for four or five months i was tidying up at the end of the day and i found a back deposit slip kind of just tucked into the skirt of the sofa and i assumed it had fallen out of her handbag um the bank name was uh coots and company which i knew from my job was um the private bank for the queen and the aristocracy and at the bottom of the slip said lady diana spencer slowly i used to get different girlfriends and um and it was coming together but never the one until one day i spotted diana at a polo match and was said that she was there uh as his guest but i couldn't i didn't know what she looked like and i walked all around this field polo field and i saw this young girl blonde girl and she was wearing a d necklace and i thought that's got to be her and i walked up to my camera and she posted me like that and i did two shots only two shots and i thought that's her that was in the july in september the first week in september i go up to scotland there's a traditional highland games at the royal family attends called the bremar gathering and i'm on my way to the braemar gathering driving by the castle and i see charles and diana by the riverbank and i jumped out my car there's a great story about the pictures how she hid amongst the trees but finally it was her and we ran the story the next day he's in love again the prince and there was this picture of diana they did at the polo and she has all the qualities to be queen one morning in september when she had been away in scotland she came bounding in my bedroom said mrs roberts and i have something very important to tell you and i sort of said go right ahead diane and i continue to blow my hair dry and you know not paying much attention she said no mrs robertson i'd like your full attention so i turned off the hair dryer turned a face her and she explained to me that when i went to work that morning i would see reporters and photographers at the end of the muse she went on to explain that they were waiting for her i said good heavens diana you know what have you done and she said she spent the weekend up at balmoral i thought god you know is he running around with teenagers for i thought i can't believe it's you know because prince charles was coming up to 30 i think he was 30 then in my position you're going to marry somebody who perhaps one day is going to become queen and you've got to choose somebody very careful i think who could fulfill this particular role because people like you perhaps would expect quite a lot from somebody like that i asked her if she thought there was any chance of a romance developing because we all knew that prince charles was in you know need of a and she said no with a tremendous regret in her voice no i don't think so after all he's 31 and i'm only 19. i don't think he'd ever look at me seriously lady diana's london flat laid siege by photographers their activities put an end to an uneventful lifestyle and flat sharing with three girls during the week and weekend retreats to stay with friends in the country in search of fresh air and exercise suddenly last september the popular papers discovered she'd spent a weekend at balmoral as the prince's special guest and unsuspecting she'd allowed them to photograph her at the school with the sun behind her wearing no slip for a girl of 19 it was a difficult time although perhaps a necessary demonstration of just how great are the pressures of living constantly in the public eye lady diana we thought it was going to be announced on his 32nd birthday but uh there wasn't and he told reporters yesterday that may be coming soon have you any comment to make about that let me die no tommy's all around a good weekend though she tried to carry on as best she could and she did come to work most days occasionally she would call in the mornings and say you know she hoped i wouldn't mind but she just could not walk out the front door and face the press it was just too stressful i would say that's fine i understand i would call my office and say i can't come to work today because diana can't come to work but of course they thought it was terribly exciting that my babysitter was dating their future king is there any possibility of any announcement of your marriage in the near future can you tell me can you tell me if there's any possibility i'm not going to say anything but prince charles did give us a hint himself he said we wouldn't have to wait too long she knew she had to be terribly careful and terribly discreet and you know polite and cheerful all the time was he completely off theme when he said we wouldn't have to wait too long a lot of pressure for an inexperienced 19 year old i think it was february 24th i picked up the phone while i was making the beds and it was a friend from london saying mary it's dina your girl made it and i mean i just shrieked i jumped for joy i knew it meant that diana had become engaged to charles and i was so i just get chills thinking about it now i was so happy for her because i knew this was you know what she wanted more than anything in the world you take us back to when you first met do you remember when you first yes yes certainly it was 1977. the charles came to stay his friend of my sister's house after shoot i'm sort of met in a plowed field i understand that prince charles actually asked you for your daughter's hand yes she did very nicely and i i'm amazed that she's been brave enough to take me on he said ross surprisingly she agreed to marry me he said what the point did you decide that um this was the right the right lady for you i mean well gradually i remember when prince charles announced his engagement i sent him a telegram and saying uh congratulations on your forthcoming marriage or something like that and he sent me one back and it said thank you for your kind remarks i hope you won't be made redundant but of course that was going to be made redundant it just started the the dial a bandwagon he's getting on a bin about time we got married well i remember thinking what a very jolly and amusing and and attractive 16 year old she was and i mean great fun and fancy and full of life and everything why are you say because i think she's just the right person for him i didn't know what you thought of me it was pretty amazing it was clear she was madly in love with charles her dream had come true and at the time of course i thought it would be a fairy tale do you find it very daunting experience that yesterday you were a nanny looking after children now you're about to marry the prince of wales and one day you would all i more likely would be queen it's a tremendous change for someone who may say of 19 to make all of a sudden the transition it is but i've had a small run out to the last six months and next which charles and i can't go wrong he's there with me a wonderful wife to prince charles a wonderful mother to his children and i suppose in love grouse whatever in love means when i wrote her and congratulated on her marriage i reminded her of our childhood conversation and said well you know diana one thing's for sure you're marrying the only person in in the country from whom you can never be divorced because she did have parents who divorced and she wanted to make it clear to me that she herself would never ever consider getting married unless she was absolutely really in love and unless that person loved her she absolutely and utterly adored this man you have to remember that when she went into this relationship she was not a woman of the world at all she'd barely been out of britain she was a country girl she was sweet and kind and old-fashioned and so she was so happy to please him and lady diana didn't disappoint those anxious to see her on her first public outing with her friends his lady had well and truly arrived in a manner few of those presents were likely to forget in a hurry her first public outing was also the first real sign of what was to come intense scrutiny media attention and criticism for revealing too much neckline and wearing black a breach of so-called protocol probably you would be just expected to know what was done and what wasn't done and diana didn't know what to do and what not to do she wasn't used to royal protocol she wasn't used to all the ins and outs of royal protocol and kind of landed herself in in the deep end and had to learn terribly quickly diana he'd say to me the morning of the wedding the crowds were outside the window and we were watching them on the television in her bedroom and she said to me well this is a lot of fuss for one girl getting married remember that she was actually getting into the carriage in the parent's house and of course the couch is very beautiful extremely ornate and last shining she was completely beautiful and i sort of sat her down and i just held her hand from it [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] when she had to get out of the carriage and all these miles and miles of billowing english silk she didn't think she was actually going to be able to get out and climb out of the carriage and it was so sweet and she was giggling about it [Music] and then when her father took her arm she told me he'd had a stroke and she just didn't know if he was going to make it she was more concerned about her father being able to make it down the aisle than anything for better for worse for better for worse for richer for the richer and poorer in sickness and in health in sickness and in health to love and to cherish to love and to cherish till death us do part till death has to cut i diana francis hi diana francis take the charles philip arthur jordan take the minute charles parker george to my wedded husband my wedded husband well we we had arranged that we would meet yes because obviously by then it was going to be pretty hot and we'd arranged that i would be in the vestry so that when she came in to sign the register i could remove the veil and check her makeup before she sort of walked out i was waiting for her and she came over to me and i was actually going to remove the veil at the time so she lifted it up and it was just after she'd taken the vows and she leaned towards me and she said you know she's like i made a mistake and i said yes and she said do you think anybody hurt i think it's about like 88 million or something but i i just sort of smiled and went on because i thought this you know this is not the time to stay yes she did have a hopelessly romantic view of marriage and she truly believed in a marriage in which the husband and wife were in love and had children she was a traditionalist at heart i think at the time that prince charles proposed to her she just believed that the two of them would adore each other and do everything to make each other happy and and that would be it [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh the wedding was the most incredible global phenomenon all around the world people marveled at her poise her cool and focused charm but if diana and charles thought that the honeymoon could be enjoyed in peace well they had another thing coming [Music] the princess mimicked the constant request to hold hands today the prince and princess of wales looked relaxed after their shipboard honeymoon how are you enjoying married life highly recommend after their honeymoon how did they find scottish weather it's about soon after diana as princess of wales had her first taste of royal duties visiting that part of the united kingdom the occasion for the princess's first public speech she was looking distinctly apprehensive with everyone taking bets on whether the princess would attempt a few words in welsh prince charles also joined in and the princess now very much more relaxed provided the translation [Applause] i do hope that both sam relationship to what i meant to say which is basically that is a very great pleasure for me to come to wales and to its capital cardiff i look forward to returning many times in the future and also i'd like to just add how proud i am to be princess of such a wonderful place and the welsh people who are very special to me thank you as if speaking welsh wasn't hard enough having the attention of the world all of the time focused on her young and inexperienced behavior made for a stressful introduction to public life that needed special support in reality she found herself under intense pressure and often in need of her new family's help to bolster her understandably battered self-confidence if it had to be pinpointed to what triggered diana's eating disorders it was the very moment that the man she absolutely loved and who she was going to marry put his arm around her waist and said well you're a little bit chubby aren't you here was this man who diana absolutely adored and he was a faint criticism and from that moment on diamond's weight absolutely plummeted she went from 29 inch waist on her engagement to 23 inch in six months to her marriage can you imagine the newspapers are divided some think she is one says she definitely is not and the daily star suggested in a cartoon that even the royal family is being kept in suspense thirteen-year-old fiona passmore couldn't contain her curiosity as the princess came over to talk to her fiona decided she'd better pop the question patting the princess she asked how's the baby princess taken aback asked did i hear that right but said no more leaving everyone laughing except an embarrassed teacher and a little girl still without an answer but still trying to find out at last on november the 5th 1981 the press was able to confirm the princess was pregnant can we ask you lord spencer have you any thoughts about whether you'd prefer a girl or a boy who's a poor girl it doesn't matter at all don't say a healthy baby the baby's well done as well that's all that matters at one stage the prince was presented with a pair of booties to give his wife for their future child he had earlier apologized for the princess's absence i'd like to to say how very sorry my wife is that she couldn't come today and see you all here i'm sure you all appreciate the reasons but i'm told that after three months things are inclined to get better which is what i hope is going to be the case but i'm quite prepared to accept full for the responsibility prince william was born on june the 31st 1982 the heir to the throne had been delivered my royal highness and her child are both doing well [Applause] [Music] can you tell us how the princess is she's very well thank you good morning how is she very well indeed thank you i'm your son he's uh in excellent form too thank goodness lovely baby very super baby looking looking a bit more human this morning not a little pack it up face tour a really good one hello how do you feel about the news a grandson of everything his father said last night lovely baby and how's the prince very happy a lot of happiness when do you think your wife will be coming home uh i hope as soon as possible [Applause] the birth of prince william marked the high water mark of the marriage providing an heir was where diana succeeded when so many royal partners had tragically failed and all looked so rosy in the royal wedding garden williams christening photo call showed the inevitability of royal life the photo was taken in the same room as prince charles's had been decades before the baby wore the same christening robe using the same lace that the royal family had employed for a century [Music] even the great grandmother was allowed to hold the baby both then and now [Music] then the outside pictures with the same props [Music] with daddy doing the pushing and mummy looking on but diana found motherhood gave her the confidence and strength to fight for changes in royal protocol for example making sure that now the royal baby traveled with father and mother to australia in 1983 rather than being left behind [Music] a radio show became the cue for a quiz on how well they knew their own child and diana shawn with humor and that unmistakable self-effacing charm question what is prince william's favorite toy um jamie he loves his koala bear he's got but he hasn't got anything particular he just likes something with a bit of noise um you've got a plastic whale that throws things at the top little balls at the early stages of their marriage when prince william was born you could see the great warmth and affection and love between them you look at any pictures from that time in any press throughout the world and it's clearly visible and she said yes that really she felt that was sir [Music] and as diana learned her royal craft and became used to being in the public eye the world soon realized that a star was in the making the public fell in love head over heels with princess diana [Music] um [Music] [Music] uh [Music] so then on september the 15th 1984 prince harry was born diana had done her royal duty by the book providing william the air and harry [Music] and their wives i think charles was very much of this mold rather look at your wife and think well come on old girl get on with the job you know let's let's this is your duty you know everyone's looking at you put yourself together because that's how they've been brought up themselves you don't show emotion you don't have feelings you've got the whole country looking at you you you know do do what you're there to do but it was really at this point that the fairy tale life began to unravel [Music] after prince harry was born that really she felt things changed she felt that camilla had come back strongly on the scene camilla shand had first been a girlfriend of prince charles some 20 years before they were said to be in love but with charles unwilling to commit to marriage camilla married andrew parker bowles and had a family but camilla and charles never stopped being friends there were severe cracks in that marriage but it certainly hadn't come to light she was very concerned about camilla at that time and her marriage and the state of it her own happiness whether her own personal happiness would ever improve and she wanted me to look at her chart and charles's chart she was just looking for i suppose any kind of answer or any kind of light that could be shared on her predicament i gave her a little bit of acupuncture but i also balanced the chakras and uh advised her particularly i think counseling was a big part of my contribution to princess diana it was not really a relationship where we sat and poured over you know the stars they didn't um sort of completely inform her every move it was more of a sort of backdrop towards um a kind of counselling our greatest need certainly was to have a confidence in herself restored i think she was enormously confused about life and i think she went to see all these people various people you know she flew off here and there to see everybody to try and find some route for her to try and find some stability maybe in a way we we we represented that kind of uh mother figure which she always needed and and and wanted she had the most wonderful relationship with lucia fleischer de lima that she was like a second mother to her i really loved her as a daughter i really loved her and she was the most wonderful friend to me diane and lucia would be on the phone almost every day without fail she brought a lot of joy of light of laughter of dramas into my life we would share things in a way i don't think mothers and daughters do share but i always be afraid that i didn't do enough for her you know i really loved her when lucia asked me if i would be diana's friend i realized this would be a tremendous commitment and that i would be there for her but i regarded as such an incredible honor and i took it very very seriously and i feel very good now in retrospect that i could be somebody who nobody knew about from the numbers of women whom i know who she considered friends and we you know have from time to time uh talked about diana and everyone who she confided in that i'm aware of kept her confidence confidences were very anxious to help her and support her she was so hurt by the situation with camilla she was she was definitely hurt enormously and the way she would defuse a situation like that for her was by putting some very sweet cartoons in her bathroom at kensington palace it would be like somebody else putting a dart board and taking some dance and throwing them somebody might do in in a bar but that was diana's way of dealing with it and i even remember for a short period of time that she'd had this disagreement with elton john and she said well he's joined the ranks i have a cartoon of him next to camilla and then sure enough when they made up she would remove this i almost had tears in my eyes listening to her because it was such a sweet and lovely way of dealing with something that had hurt her so much it was difficult because she had a vision for royalty for the coming century a modern vision she wanted to be much more open to embrace people to be more open with everything if they were going to a charity event or to visit the homeless or to visit the sick that they shouldn't just stand afar and speak to them through somebody else she felt it was very important to show a warmth and an interest and she felt that if one wasn't interested in it and didn't show warmth or feel warmth one shouldn't do it this was quite a source of difficulty for both of them very often she would discuss so many different duties things they had to attend to and even if prince charles listened to her approaching and didn't disagree with it he would always under every circumstance defer to the queen my feeling about charles is he has a directed childhood he probably really couldn't have responded to her the way that she needed him to respond she expected him to really be there for her to support her and guide her and he just had a completely different view of the relationship i think he got a bit resentful of this and he became i'd say a little bit sour and and bitter and i in a way i don't blame him because you know it was he was slighted and i remember once we went to silverstone a racetrack uh where they hold the british grand prix and uh he was there on his own and a little boy come up said hi charlie where's die and he said i'm sorry she's not coming today but i asked for your money back i remember once in india the princess was going to the taj mahal and everybody was at the taj mahal she visited the greatest monument to love in the world but without her husband she turned her face away when he tried to kiss her at a polo match the hints the tape the rumors proved true in the end it was all so ordinary a unique moment in history played out in a small green room known as court number one at somerset house an alphabetical list of 32 couples applying for a degree nice i was before the court with hrh the prince of wales versus hrh the princess of wales appearing last the document issued this morning sets out that it was the prince who lodged the petition for divorce on the grounds that the marriage had irretrievably broken down because of irreconcilable differences it was signed by both the prince and princess in august the decree absolute was granted it was the end of the fairy tale on the day the divorce she never wanted was finalized diana princess of wales as she now is was on familiar ground besieged by the world media she kept a long-standing engagement at the english national ballet one of only six organizations she's chosen to continue to support on the day of the divorce when she was in here um yeah she said i'm having the most obviously i'm having the most terrible day this is one of the worst days of my life but i have to i have to accept it and i have to get on with it and let's go and watch some rehearsals and symbolically she chose to change her appearance as well she said what would you do my with my hair giving a free hand and i said well honestly she wouldn't yeah but i wouldn't ask you otherwise and i said just get rid of it i just cut it all off and start again that was a bit of an eye opener to realize that someone's haircut could cause that much of a star and it wasn't even a hugely drastic haircut it was just a bit shorter they were climbing on each other's backs because charles came 15 people turned out to say hello the princess of wales came the entire world came diana seemed to grow into a new role even a new person after the divorce she quite simply became a star and the people loved her she combined some unique characteristics glamorous beautiful caring and of course a great mother she really was a wonderful mother i mean she was terribly involved with her children and of course the more we saw her with her boys the more our hearts went out to her she was never less than 100 in everything she did whether it was watching her sons at the school sports or running in the parents race [Music] but what was totally clear was how much she adored william and harry she tried her darn hardest to give those kids to let those kids see a normal way of life i can remember one particular time we were talking about the kids which she loved to do and she was just telling me a little school story this was on william was very small and i think he was still at junior school and she said you know he came back ran into me and said mommy i'm a prince and i think they have to call me prince at school and she said to him you know i said tim your name's william and just don't forget she stressed that she wanted to bring the boys up as normally as she could and she used one instance of saying that she would give the boys a little bit of pocket money so that they'd go in and buy sweets for themselves and just get used to interacting as normal people do and she said charles thinks that i'm overdoing it [Music] [Applause] [Music] uh she used to curve listen to amazing facts this had a purpose it was not just to please them to do an outing with them it was educational when customers come in you go through the specials of the day um we told princess diana and the two princesses specials and harry turned around and said um is that just because it starts today special and princess diana turned around and said you get a special smack in a minute so she was really down to her she's great and she would take them to mcdonald's she would take them to the cinema she would take them to marston spencer's down the road in cancer high street or whatever and she'd love to do that and it was really important they were put in the same situation as any other boy and she thought that's very important she felt it was terribly important because of their positions and because of william's future that he experienced firsthand what the world was really about and not just read about it and be told about it but to see it to feel it and to touch it she would very often on cold winter's nights take them out on the streets of london where there were no press and take them to talk to the homeless and have conversations with the homeless and just experience the other side of life she really wanted them to know what the men of the street thought and how the men of it felt because she strongly knew that since william was meant to be king he must know his subjects very well and she said then they would go home and they would be at kensington palace and they would have a hot bath and realize how terribly fortunate they were and think of ways in which they could help these people when i met with the princess of wales the day after her divorce i saw a woman who was excited about her prospects and concerned about whether she would be able to fulfill what she really felt to be her destiny that destiny was very connected to her wish to show her compassion to the world to open her heart to the world to show her love and change and affect suffering as it existed and i did everything i could to support her in finding ways to make that happen if only to believe that it might because the opportunity was so tremendous she felt compelled to try in her own way to demonstrate love even though i think she believed she had not been loved well by many people she knew very clearly that her role was no longer what it had been with respect to the royal family everyone knew that what was unknown was the extent to which she would be given the room to really go out there and speak for changing the world and making it a better place with less human suffering caused by humans to one another i was a battered woman and i was going i was had to be put into a domestic violence shelter and i came to henry street with three children and because of the battering in the home i was able to you know flee and get into a safe environment i was homeless it was homes with eight children i had a house up in wisconsin county that lost when my husband died with six kids so that's how i came here the women that she met with uh the self-help women we were very clear after i read my protocol and i told them we all read up we knew how to act we were not gonna embarrass henry street before she came we were trying to figure out where we were supposed to say yes ma'am you know ma'am were we supposed to curtsy what were we supposed to you know how were we supposed to greet her one of the self-help women she was she couldn't act like we wanted her to act me and my big mouth she looked at the princess and she kept saying oh and you know what kind of like coolness you know and so finally she said oh but you're so pretty just like that her skin oh it was just unreal uh and and i was like can i say that and the princess she she was into it and we just laughed he was a person that is so out into the open you know in front of everyone and she was caring about someone that's as small as me you know that's the way i i took it as you know personally right and just to hear that into you know and to feel it all of a sudden it just made me feel special i was so surprised and and struck about the the the natural she she felt just like anybody else diana embraced wholeheartedly the aged charities i remember the first time we went to the middlesex hospital and i went with barbara bush the president's wife and mrs bush came in with diana and diana went to these patients as though she'd known them all their lives she sat and talked to them inches away from their face determined to show them that somebody cared about them and she almost single-handedly took the stigma away from aids i remember all the jokes among the photographers going into the aids ward and they were making remarks like oh you need a 500 millimeter lens in there and all this because we were all ignorant we were totally ignorant and she was there to show us how ignorant we were to show us that there was this tremendous ignorance in the country about aids and how we should approach it she was urged not to get involved because it was considered not a very nice disease and the sort of people that get it and not very nice people it was suggested to her but she didn't think like that she thought anybody that was ill deserved compassion and she gave it to them and not only did she do it in the middle sex hospital in london she did it in harlem with babies aids babies and she was tremendous for her to give her time to spend it with children who were hiv infected with people who had um poor people leprosy people who were being killed because of land mines and all she did something that was unusual because of who she was she had the power to demand that sort of like the world would be brought to our backyard and they had to come and stand in that yard because she was there and so therefore everyone had to really look and say this is something that everyone needs to take heed to and do something about she kept drawing from this great reservoir of loving kindness this spirit that she had which couldn't be stamped out if you have a vessel you can put so much into it but if just too much if there's more than the vessel can hold but it has to go elsewhere i saw that in her i mean that great joyous exuberant love she showed her sons she had so much it spilled out and spilled over onto humanity that empathetic compassionate love she showed aids patients and land mine victims the love that i think mother teresa saw in her and responded to mother teresa's hospice in calcutta literally people are dying there on the hour they're that sick and the princess uh came in and there must have been a hundred men lying on stretchers on the floor maybe a foot apart two foot apart and she went to each patient in that room and gave them a special suite that's got glucose in it she knelt down she sort of talked to them as best she could with one of the nuns and as she walked around the room her dress was getting dirtier and dirtier she didn't care she had this beautiful pink dress on and when she walked out she was covered in in dust and dirt and i think she was probably the most moved i've ever seen her and she just seemed to be as home there as if she was in a living room at kensington palace and afterwards the nun sang to her and she just wept diana you know she was so moved by it all that was her search to really do something major in the same line as mother teresa but differently with a different slant when you see mother teresa and the princess standing side by side it isn't out of this world in terms of comparison they both had a gift of compassion and although totally different packages on the outside you could see heart to heart that they understood it and recognized it in each other when mother teresa came to kensington palace and saw the vast amount of space that she had there she and diana told me she had said to her danny you could hold so many poor people in this place it's going to waste all the space her position of course gave her entrees that many would not have but she could not have pulled it off it could not have survived the test of authenticity both in person and across the television screen if it had not been real i was a student in israel in 1984 and i just went camping with two american friends in the northern part of the country and we hiked off the beaten track and next you know we were camping in a minefield and had no idea and it was on a sunny spring morning i was walking across a field and the world exploded all around me and then i spent six months in hospitals in israel undergoing amputations and skin grafts and learning to walk with a prosthesis an artificial leg the princess was told how the teenager set off to market and was blown up by a landmine that was just six months ago rosetta lost her right leg diana brought land mines into every living room in the world without that lightning rod of her celebrities and the cameras following her perhaps none of us would ever have really heard about the mass suffering caused by landmines when we asked the princess of wales to join us in bosnia our intention was to introduce her to families who had been blown apart by landmines i was stunned the more we allowed her to work and to be appropriate and just reach out with people with her hands with hugging with touching and not being afraid of anyone the more i saw something really special happening in these families homes it was something to step back and learn from touching is one of the most important things in healing touch is the greatest healer of all i've never seen her wearing gloves always started to people with bare hands in the past kings were supposed to have this healing gift there was a special day during the year where people would go to the king and the king would put his hands his bare hands on these people and they would be free from some diseases and i think diana really had this power and i don't mean in the sense that she should touch you and be healed but she brought such a hope such a joy into sick people's life she touched them with such a loving way and i think she transmitted them a very positive energy that helped a lot of them through their illness in august 95 um my lung collapsed and had to be rushed to hospital and from that day onwards my house just gone down and down and down really and the part about my lung collapsing was it was about six weeks before my wedding so when i got out of hospital the week before the wedding had my wedding and then it collapsed again on the tuesday so my honeymoon was also back in the hospital that's how i came to meet diana i was four foot six before i went forward for the operation i'd been having growth hormone injections for several years beforehand and i'd always known that with these injections i'd get to five foot so when the doctors finally told me that i wouldn't get that to that height that i was not going to grow any more as my bones had fused i was absolutely devastated i broke my neck spinal cord around c2c3 area they're not quite sure so this leaves me paralyzed from the necktie but the doctors did say that i'd never be able to breathe unaided by myself and i've done that so never know i think diana really had this gift she never thought she was special she never thought she is she was important she thought she was just there to help people and to be with people and i don't know my insultant said to me diana would like to come and visit you for a second time um so i said oh okay and when she arrived [Music] it was just just so natural but she she was lovely the first thing i remember her saying to me is um i was a bit worried about what i was supposed to be doing so i asked should i be cursed should i curtsy to you and she says oh no i should be the one curt sing to you you're all so brave that was that put me at ease straight away she said to me keep in touch let me know how you're getting on and as any ten-year-old would i took her at her words and offered my first letter just about a year later seeing she remembered me and telling her how i was getting on and when i was doing at school and everything and to my surprise she wrote back almost immediately and saying that she remembered me and just asking lots of questions and i was absolutely amazed i never thought that she would write back and it just went from there we wrote to each other right up until her death well princess diana was in liverpool opening the new women's hospital and she was visiting cathedral and she'd read about me and she knew me through to chelsea through simon barnes and she got in touch and asked could she meet with me and the family i was just shocked and amazed like but i didn't i didn't know what i felt i couldn't believe it she made me feel even though i can't use my arms and my legs like i could do anything there's nothing i couldn't do and it's just a incredible feeling just give me the biggest buzz of my entire life and then suddenly brutally and shockingly it was tragically all over when it had seemed as if personal happiness was in her grasp [Music] the candle that had burned so brightly was snuffed out [Music] we lost the special person we lost diana lady died that special person we knew as the people's princess she was just like this ever-present presence as it were and it wasn't until she died that i realized that that had been the case it was suddenly like the top of the christmas tree had been cut off that she was the the most glamorous woman that there could be and she just disappeared it was like the whole world was a little darker shortly after her death just about every session i had with a woman and patient it came up and they were they were distressed most of my female patients were distressed and almost all of them mentioned it in the session as something that they were aware of and felt incredibly sad about i had this absurd sense that i was connected to her in some way um when she was married i was probably 15 16 years old something like that and it was sort of prime time for fantasizing oneself as a princess people suddenly felt this terrible loss that they'd lost the one person that they saw every single day of their lives in some way or other whether it was on the television it was in the new york post it was in the la times or the washington post it was you know just hanging out or there'd be you know one cover or other the people magazine had her on so many times and i think that they just felt this terrible emptiness yeah i don't know she was like all she was all the marvelous glamorous things that one wanted to be with normal grieving we have a ritual and we have a support system and we have things that we do and there's a timetable that seems to go with it we don't have a timetable for these kinds of people yet and we don't know how it's going to end so you give things you buy things you send things and so we have a sort of a thrashing around trying to show how do you express grief for somebody you've never met but you still feel a [Music] loss it isn't that she lived and grew old and we could see her possibly not looking just like she used to look it's like jfk we will never get over jfk because the chapter can never be closed i think that the manner of her death and the fact that she was so young and and it was also unnecessary shook people i think that in itself contributed to the sense of loss people had there's a certain kind of tragedy of course that occurs to anybody who dies before we'd expect them to i like to think that she was here for a reason and not just one reason for many many reasons and i think i think she has made it her life has made a difference her impact is not bricks and mortar i mean her impact is is not the wing of the hospital that's named after her and whose funds were raised in her name i mean her impact it really is in in the hearts of of the of the of the doctors and nurses and patients who were in the hospital she was constantly striving to become better and bigger and you know more involved and to really challenge yourself i think that the effect that diana had is in the idea that someone could be this famous the most famous recognizable woman in the world the woman whose pits who appeared in every magazine every newspaper everyone knew her and yet in that role she could seek to be idealistic and work hard for for the betterment of humankind she tried to give hope to people people who had no reason to have any kind of hope no future no nothing then should come with her beauty with her grace with her smile with her caring and she would give that to them she provided a role that i think that many people need need to have need to know that someone can do this and stan and represent these ideas she was really at the top of her game it seemed to a lot of us and there was no telling what she would do how she would influence the world and how she would use her extraordinary presence on behalf of causes and people she cared about and whether she would now finally have some private happiness at some point in the future thank you for coming to our country you know i would say that she found the best possible way to live which is to be there for other people she'd found that by the end of her life she'd made it okay for people to say that they weren't okay you know in tiana what you saw is one young woman who made a dent who stood out who had very very little support and yet she had the courage to take it on and she did get a response she did cause some degree of change and in that message there's an empowerment for all of us all of us very ordinary people that sometimes wonder if we can make a difference or not [Music] when diana died she left something special behind for everybody she left a lasting legacy with her sons they will never let us forget her and they will take on their own responsibilities in her manner she left a legacy to the world of her caring and her compassion that is why diana the people's princess truly was the queen of all of our hearts [Music] you

Channel: Real Royalty

Views: 373,519

Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history

Id: sJIg2FWQE_c

Length: 72min 13sec (4333 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 17 2021