Diana waving to the crowd as she arrives at the Cite de la Musique at La Villette in Paris. Photograph by Joel Robine

Diana was our society’s warning to women

By BidishaThursday 31 August 2017 06.00 BST


A modern tragedy carried a very old message: that women who have the audacity to break their bonds ultimately suffer


I

remember the day Diana died. I was 19, and had crashed at a friend’s place in town. When I woke up – 20 years ago today – the friend said: “Princess Diana is dead.” I went outside and the streets, tube stations, shops and cafes were empty and silent. In the evening I visited Buckingham Palace and that too was silent. Disbelief, remorse and regret hung in the air.

Diana showed that we need emotion, but it’s had a downside

Illustration: Sébastien Thibault

Diana showed that we need emotion, 

but it’s had a downside

Matthew d'Ancona
Monday 28 August 2017 06.00 BST

The princess helped put feeling into our politics, but as we’ve seen from Brexit to the rise of Trump, this has too often taken the place of reason

‘I

walked through the crowds in St James’s, and realised this was no longer a country I truly understand.” So a former member of John Major’s cabinet lamented to me 20 years ago this week. As the nation mourned Diana, Princess of Wales, makeshift shrines sprang up all over the country, and a sea of flowers outside Kensington Palace transformed a London park into something closer to Lourdes.

Diana
Princess of Wales

'She touched the lives of millions': readers on Diana's death and funeral

To mark the 20th anniversary of Diana’s death we asked readers to share their memories of her, the funeral and the public reaction

Guardian readers and Rachel Obordo
Thursday 31 August 2017 08.00 BST

F

or many people, Diana’s sudden death – and the public outpouring of grief that followed – was an extraordinary time. In commemoration, we asked readers to share their memories of the day and her funeral 20 years on. Here’s what some of them said.

Diana
Princess of Wales

The death of Princess Diana: a week that rocked Britain

Events leading up to and beyond the shocking announcement that the Princess of Wales had died in a car crash in Paris

Twenty years ago, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, stunned the world. From the shocking announcement of the news to her funeral procession lined by a million-strong crowd, this tumultuous week rocked Britain – and the monarchy.

Diana
Princess of Wales

30 August 1997

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Newly divorced, freshly independent, Diana is enjoying a summer of fun. Divested of her royal title, her famous gowns auctioned for charity, she is Vanity Fair’s cover and planning a trip to Sarajevo to promote her campaign against landmines. In July she arrives in St Tropez with William and Harry as guests of the Harrods owner, Mohamed Al Fayed, on his yacht, The Jonikal. Fayed’s son, Dodi, 42, is summoned by his father to meet her as she and her sons enjoy jet-skiing, swimming, sunshine and lavish hospitality.

Princess Diana is Vanity Fair’s September cover girl

Princess Diana is Vanity Fair’s September cover girl

July 30, 2013 

By Kaiser

Ugh, really? For real, Vanity Fair? On the September issue, arguably the most important issue of any magazine? This is the cover of Vanity Fair’s September issue – Princess Diana, re-using a photo (now majorly cropped) from Mario Testino’s 1997 photo shoot. I believe that this was Diana’s last formal photo shoot, and she did do it for Vanity Fair/Testino – as a way to promote the auction of her old dresses for charity. Now the shoot is being reused, 16 years later, for VF’s September issue. It’s not even like they’re pairing this reprint with a really interesting story either – the cover story is just about how Diana was in love with Hasnat Khan. We already knew that!

The princess myth: Hilary Mantel on Diana

The Wolf Hall novelist on the 20th anniversary of the death of the Princess of Wales, an icon ‘only loosely based on the young woman born Diana Spencer’

Saturday 26 August 2017 06.00 BST

Royal time should move slowly and by its own laws: creeping, like the flow of chrism from a jar. But 20 ordinary years have jog-trotted by, and it’s possible to have a grownup conversation with someone who wasn’t born when Diana died. Her widower is long remarried. Her eldest son, once so like her, shows signs of developing the ponderous looks of Philip, his grand-father. Diana should be as passe as ostrich plumes: one of those royal or quasi-royal women, like Mary of Teck or Wallis Simpson or the last tsarina, whose images fade to sepia and whose bones are white as pearls. Instead, we gossip about her as if she had just left the room. We still debate how in 1981 a sweet-faced, puppy-eyed 20-year-old came to marry into the royal house. Was it a setup from the start? Did she know her fiance loved another woman? Was she complicit, or was she an innocent, garlanded for the slab and the knife?