On July 1, 1961, Diana Spencer was born, the people’s princess, who died after a car accident at 36 years old. We retrace her entire iconic life.
Lady Diana has been missing from her subjects, and beyond, for 26 years. Since that accursed August 31, 1997 , when her life was cut short in a car accident in the Alma tunnel in Paris. Incident, however, which helped to make the legend immortal.
Due to her charm, Diana, who would be 62 today, still lives in the hearts of the commoners. She is a timeless icon, in fashion as in advertising, in the cinema and in the collective imagination.
Diana, even before Lady, proved to be a mainstream character in an era prior to that in which the term itself acquired a “millennial oriented” meaning.
The English princess has represented, and continues to represent, everything. The fable, the drama, the ability to universally embody any woman. She who was a woman to the end and who rose to champion of that freedom in the name of which she challenged prejudices and limits.Giving the whole world the example that in life you always have the possibility of letting yourself be guided by your heart. “I like being a free spirit. A lot of people don’t like that, but that’s who I am.”
Daughter of her generation, but projected into the future, she managed to emancipate the monarchy. She forever changing her face.
And she did it with her hopelessly rebellious way of going outside the box. A life lived intensely, but ended too soon.
Lady Diana’s Childhood
Diana Frances Spencer was born in Sandringham, Norfolk, on July 1, 1961 .Daughter of Viscount John Spencer and Frances Ruth Roche, she grew up in one of the most noble English families.But the family life of the Spencers will soon be wrecked due to the effrontery of Frances who decided to abandon the marital home for Peter Shand Kydd, a wealthy landowner.
Shy and reserved, Diana’s school career did not excel. After repeating the high school exam twice, she attends a school in Switzerland where they teach her etiquette and good manners.While cherishing the dream of becoming a dancer with the Royal Ballet, she moves to London in an apartment given to her by her parents and which she will share with two other friends. In the English capital she worked as a nanny and teacher at the Young England kindergarten, located in an upscale district of Westminster. Just in the London years Diana met Prince Charles.
Charles, Camilla and Diana
In the 1970s, Charles was Europe’s most coveted bachelor, and the royal family eagerly wanted to settle him. But finding a woman suitable for him and for court life was far from simple. We had to find that woman who would one day become Queen of England.
The suitor should therefore have been of blue blood, young, good-looking, but above all a virgin. An arduous undertaking in a constantly changing society and in the midst of the sexual revolution.
In addition, the bride-to-be would have to deal with Camilla Shand. Charles’s age and close to the royal family, Camilla was not so beautiful or even noble. But the prince loved her and would always love her. So why not marry (immediately) her? Clearly, for reasons of etiquette.
Camilla boasted numerous relationships, but in particular she had one in those years: the one with Andrew Parker Bowles . Who – before becoming her husband – had been a flirt of Princess Anna.
Therefore, the Royal Family would never have approved the relationship. Thus, Charles was shipped to the Caribbean in the navy and Camilla married Parker Bowles on July 4, 1973.
Charles and Diana met instead by chance. The first had in fact had a liaison with Sarah, the sister of the second. But Diana, in search of personal redemption, had set herself the goal of marrying the Prince of Wales.
In 1977 the two began dating between hunting trips, evenings at the theater and days on the royal yacht Britannia. After four years of relationship, fully approved by Buckingham Palace, the engagement was made official on February 24, 1981. And the two got married on July 29, 1981 in Saint Paul’s Cathedral. Diana embodied the perfect princess. But that marriage will prove to be a disaster.
Life at court and the birth of two children
“There were three of us in this slightly too crowded wedding ”. These are the words spoken by Spencer to Martin Beshir of the BBC. And indeed her relationship has always been marred by the shadow of her lover Camilla.
She lived in a marriage in which she didn’t get the attention she deserved. And this plunged her into a dramatic state of depression.
In the year she was pregnant with William , direct heir to the throne, she simulated a fall down the stairs to get a modicum of attention from her husband. Once the harmful consequences for her pregnancy had been eliminated, and the period of bulimia had been overcome, her relations with Carlo experienced a clear improvement with the pregnancy of her second son Harry. Who will be born on September 15, 1984.
But the numerous institutional commitments will push the couple away again. The future king thus resumed relations with Camilla, and Diana, perhaps in a last desperate attempt to regain her husband’s attentions, began a relationship with James Hewitt , her riding teacher.
Thus, the princess’s problems with eating disorders began again. And her marriage will fail in less than five years.
Diana has never given up on her intimate rebellion. In the parable of her life she demonstrated that every rule could apply. She was a princess, but she behaved like a commoner and did so by wearing the much discussed black dresses to the rhythm of a tap dance. Unforgettable was the ball granted to John Travolta at the White House. It was 1985.
Therefore, having become a real phenomenon of custom, Lady D has undoubtedly played an important social role. She fought for AIDS patients, supported the fight against leprosy and the associations that defended the homeless.
She has become the spokesperson for causes far from the real ones and has openly sided for the protection of children and against the use of weapons.
Her visit to India to the hospice for the terminally ill promoted by Mother Teresa of Calcutta has gone down in history . She truly deserves the title of princess of the people. Given to her, the latter, by British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The tragic disappearance
Diana and Princess Charles divorced on August 28, 1996 . From that moment on, Lady D became a real obsession for paparazzi from all over the world. International tabloids were looking for the most scandalous details and forbidden affairs of the princess. And it is precisely the latter that will reverberate like an echo on the day of his death. It was August 31, 1997.
Diana was in Paris with her fiance Dodi al-Fayed. The two, after leaving the Ritz Hotel, were chased by a procession of paparazzi and crashed aboard a Mercedes against the thirteenth pillar of the Pont de l’Alma tunnel in Paris.
Diana, initially extracted alive after the belated rescue intervention, died at the Pitie-Salpetirere hospital in Paris. Together with them, the driver Henry Paul lost his life. Also on board with the three was Trevor Rees-Jones, a member of private security from the Fayed family and the sole survivor of the crash.
Although the double strand of British and French investigation has demonstrated the fatality of the accident, the shadow of the conspiracy still remains today. Perhaps due to the driver’s alcohol level three times higher than that allowed by French law or perhaps because some rumors of the time had revealed the possibility of a pregnancy for Lady Diana.
Certainly, a half-brother of another culture and religion would have put the English monarchy in quite a bit of trouble. We will never know.
Today, however, we know that – despite having lost her life at the age of 36 – Lady Daina has never disappeared. But she still lives in the memories, in the style and in the way in which her son William and her daughter-in-law Kate have chosen to relate to their subjects.