Special Topic Mag. Gross By Astrid Horejs June 2000

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Childhood and teenage years

Diana, Princess of Wales, formerly Lady Diana Frances Spencer, was born on 1 July 1961 at Park House near Sandringham, Norfolk. She was the youngest daughter of the then Viscount and Viscountess Althorp. Diana's childhood had been overshadowed by her parents' broken marriage. She was only six, living with two sisters and a brother on the royal family's Sandringham estate in eastern England when her mother Frances left home in a society scandal involving a messy custody battle. Earl Spencer later married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth in 1976. Together with her two elder sisters Sarah (born 1955), Jane (born 1957) and her younger brother Charles (born 1964), Lady Diana continued to live with her father at Park House, Sandringham, until the death of her grandfather, the 7th Earl Spencer. In 1975, the family moved to the Spencer family house at Althorp, in Northamptonshire, in the English Midlands. Lady Diana was educated first at a preparatory school, Riddlesworth Hall at Diss, Norfolk, and then in 1974 went as a boarder to West Heath, near Sevenoaks, Kent. At school she showed a particular talent for music, dancing and domestic science, and gained the school's award for the girl giving maximum help to the school and her schoolfellows. She left West Heath in 1977 and went to finishing school at the Institute Alpine Videmanette in Rougemont, Switzerland, which she left after the Easter term of 1978. The following year she moved to a flat in Coleherne Court, London. For a while she looked after the child of an American couple, and she worked as a kindergarten teacher at Young England School in Pimlico.

The Wedding

It was officially announced on February 24, 1981 that Lady Diana would marry The Prince of Wales, eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, is heir apparent to the throne. The Prince was born at Buckingham Palace on 14 November 1948. Their families had known each other for years and The Prince and Lady Diana had met again when he was invited to a weekend at Althorp. They were married in St Paul’s Cathedral on July 29, 1981. The 1

ceremony drew a world-wide audience of over 1,000 million people. Hundreds of thousands of people lined the route from Buckingham Palace to the Cathedral. Princess Diana was the first Englishwomen to marry a heir to the throne for 300 years. Princess Diana wore a silk taffeta dress with a 25 foot train designed by the Emanuals. Her veil was held in place by the Spencer Family diamond tiara. Her bouquet was of gardenias, lilies of the valley, white freesia, golden roses, white orchids and stephanotis. There were five bridesmaids.

Honeymoon

The Prince and Princess of Wales spent their first part of their honeymoon at the Mountbatten family home at Broadlands, Hampshire. Afterwards the pair of newlyweds flew to Gibraltar to join the Royal Yacht HMY BRITANNIA. The yacht embarked on a 12 day cruise through the Mediterranean to Egypt. Their honeymoon ended with a stay at Balmoral.

Marriage After the marriage the Prince and Princess of Wales lived primarily at Highgrove house near Tetbury, Gloucestershire. They also shared an apartment at Kensington Palace. In the early years of her own marriage, Diana outshone her husband on every royal occasion, drawing the attention of the crowds and the focus of the cameras. But privately she was in despair over her disintegrating marriage and a husband whose affections still belonged to another woman, Camilla Parker Bowles, and who was envious of her fame. As far as Queen Elizabeth was concerned, Diana's duty was to remain silent, accepting with dignity the traditions of royalty that have long sanctioned male infidelity. The wife's reward was in the privileges and celebrity royalty offered. But Diana was a modern woman with romantic notions about her marriage. She fought back. In November 1995, after being married for 14 years, Diana gave a television interview, without the knowledge of her advisers or even the queen, in which she broke the cherished royal tradition of reserve and set out her demands for her future as an ex-royal. She gave an anguished account of her suffering over her husband's undying passion for Parker Bowles. Diana told how, in her unhappiness, she had developed the eating disorder bulimia nervosa and described the aides of the royal family as her enemies. 2

After her separation from The Prince, the Princess continued to appear with the Royal family on major national occasions, such as the commemorations of the 50th anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) and VJ (Victory over Japan) Days in 1995.

FEHLT WAS

Their Children Prince William Arthur Philip Louis was born on 21 June 1982 at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, in London. Prince William began his education at Mrs Mynor's Nursery School in west London. Prince William is currently at Eton College, Windsor, where he will study geography, biology and history of art at A Level. Prince William is a keen sportsman and prefers football, rugby, tennis, swimming and water polo. He has acted in school plays, and enjoys reading and filmgoing. Prince William's first public appearance was on a visit to Wales on St David's Day (1 March), at a service at Llandaff Cathedral, aged 8. Prince William does not yet carry out public engagements on his own. Prince Henry Charles Albert David was born on 15 September 1984 at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington. In September, Prince Harry started at Eton College, Windsor.

Public role

After her marriage, The Princess of Wales quickly became involved in the official duties of the Royal family. Her first tour with The Prince was a three-day visit to Wales in October 1981. Official overseas visits undertaken with The Prince include Australia, Brazil, India, Canada, Nigeria, Cameroon, Indonesia, Spain, Italy, France, Portugal and Japan. Their last joint overseas visit was to South Korea in 1992. The Princess's first official visit overseas on her own was in September 1982, when she represented The Queen at the state funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco. 3

The Princess visited afterwards many countries on her own including Germany, the United States, Pakistan, Switzerland, Hungary, Egypt, Belgium, France, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Nepal. The Princess was best known for her charitable work. During her marriage, the Princess was president or patron of over 100 charities. The Princess did much to publicise work on behalf of homeless and also disabled people, children and people with HIV/Aids. Following her divorce, the Princess resigned from most of her work for charity. The Princess remained as patron of Centrepoint (homeless charity), English National Ballet, Leprosy Mission and National Aids Trust, and as President of the Hospital for Sick Children. In June 1997, the Princess attended receptions in London and New York as previews of the sale of a number of dresses and suits worn by her on official engagements, with the proceeds going to charity. Her last official engagement in Britain was on 21 July, when she visited Northwick Park Hospital, London (children's accident and emergency unit). In the year before her death, the Princess was an active campaigner for a ban on the manufacture and use of land mines. In January 1997, she visited Angola as part of her campaign. in June, the Princess spoke at the landmines conference at the Royal Geographical Society in London. The Princess's last public engagements were during her visit to Bosnia from 7 to 10 August, when she visited landmine projects in Travnic, Sarajevo and Zenezica.

Dodi and Diana He lived like a prince and died at the side of a princess

Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi, the film producer son of Mohammed Al Fayed, the owner of Harrods luxury department store and the exclusive Ritz hotel in Paris, were spotted on several occasions amid the yachts and palaces owned by the Egyptian family. Diana, 36, whose father is a personal friend of Mohammed Al Fayed, met Dodi, 41, some ten years ago, at Windsor, during a polo match. The photographs were the first evidence of a relationship between Diana and another man since her divorce from Prince Charles in August 1996 -- and rocketed the 42-year-old Al Fayed to the status of international celebrity. Despite his rich friends and lavish lifestyle, friends said Al Fayed was very quiet, even aloof at times -- a tabloid unknown until the British press published the photographs of him with Princess Diana. 4

The tabloids charted their travels aboard his father's $32 million yacht and speculated about the possibility of the Egyptian becoming the stepfather to the future King of England. London tabloids have described Al Fayed as a handsome playboy with a love of fast cars and beautiful women. Al Fayed was a graduate of the British Army's elite Sandhurst military Academy and once served as a junior officer in London for the United Arab Emirates. Diana took her two sons, Princes William and Harry to spend part of their summer holidays at one of the Al Fayeds' holiday homes in the exclusive resort of Saint-Tropez, in the south of France. the couple were subjected to the constant flash of the media glare and the pages of the international press were filled with photographs of Dodi and Diana. Every move was snapped up by the press: the couple relaxing in bright sunshine, dipping into the blue Mediterranean sea and sharing intimate moments at the Paris Ritz. The tabloid press reverberated to varied speculation about Diana's future plans. Speculation mounted that she would wed Dodi and that she would finally leave Britain to be with her new love.

Death

Prior to the fatal accident, Diana and Dodi had spent a week onboard the yacht "Jonikal." They sailed from Saint-Tropez to the Italian port of Portofino. The tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales occurred on Sunday, 31 August 1997 following a car accident in Paris, France. The vehicle in which the Princess was travelling was involved in a high-speed accident in the Place de l'Alma underpass in central Paris shortly before midnight on Saturday, 30 August. According to police in the French capital, the accident in which they died early on Sunday happened when their car was being pursued by press photographers on a motorcycle. The Princess was taken to the La Pitie Salpetriere Hospital, where she underwent two hours of emergency surgery before being declared dead at 0300 BST. The Princess's companion, Mr Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the vehicle died in the accident, whilst a bodyguard was seriously injured. The Princess's body was subsequently repatriated to the United Kingdom in the evening of Sunday, 31 August. The coffin was taken to a private mortuary in London, so that the necessary legal formalities could be completed. Shortly after midnight, it was moved to the 5

Chapel Royal in St. James’s Palace, where it lay privately until the funeral on Saturday, 6 September, in Westminster Abbey. The Princess's family and friends visited the Chapel to pay their respects. Following the funeral service, the coffin then was taken by road to the family estate at Althorp for a private interment. The Princess was buried in sanctified ground on an island in the centre of an ornamental lake.

Could a seat belt have saved Diana?

A computer simulation of the accident done for CNN by Renfroe Engineering in Farmington, Arkansas, shows that seat belts may have indeed turned the fatal crash into one that was survivable. The car in which Princess Diana and her party were riding, a Mercedes S280, is believed to have struck a concrete post in a tunnel, bounced off the opposite tunnel wall and come to rest after turning 180 degrees. Its estimated speed is anywhere from 70 to 100 miles per hour. The computer simulation shows that without seat belts, both the head and chest of a person sitting in the right rear seat -- where Diana sat -- would have hit the back of the front seat with great force. Princess Diana experienced chest injuries, including a torn pulmonary artery that led to cardiac arrest. Renford said, “If Diana would have worn a seatbelt, she might have suffered at worst some broken ribs or a broken sternum – nothing life threatening.”

First doctor at scene describes panic The first doctor to treat Princess Diana at the scene of her fatal car crash early on Sunday, described the scene of panic he encountered. Doctor Frederic Maillez told France-2 television he happened to drive by only minutes after the accident took place in a road tunnel in central Paris. The doctor, in his late 30s, who was off duty at the time, stopped his car and went to see what had happened. There were many people around and lots of panic. He was the first person to treat Princess Diana, who was described as, "unconscious...moaning and gesturing in every direction". "I saw that two people were dead and two were seriously hurt. I went back to my car to call 6

emergency services and give them a first medical assessment before returning to the site with some of my equipment," Maillez said. When he returned to the car, a man who turned out to be a volunteer fireman had started giving first aid to the front seat passenger, bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, the only of the four people in the car who survived the crash. "I therefore went to the aid of the young woman in the back who turned out to be Lady Diana. I did not recognise her immediately," Maillez said. "I helped to free her upper respiratory tracts," said Maillez, who described how Diana's head lay on her own shoulder, "in a position in which you cannot breathe if you are unconscious." "I therefore lifted her head and helped her breathe with an oxygen mask," Maillez said. Maillez said there were many photographers at the scene. "About 10 or 15 of them, and they were snapping away at the car non-stop though one cannot say they hampered me or my work". "They were just like the people you find milling around the site of serious accidents," he said. The major U.S. tabloid National Enquirer has said it turned down pictures of Diana trapped alive in the car for $250,000. Partially contradicting Maillez, the police affairs correspondent of well-informed French daily Le Monde said eyewitnesses, presumably testifying to police, reported that photographers shooed away the first people who tried to come to the aid of those trapped in the car. Journalist Erich Inciyan, who regularly breaks stories from Paris police headquarters, said eyewitnesses told of photographers pushing away would-be rescuers approaching the car in order to get unobstructed views for their cameras as those inside bled profusely. He said photographers also argued with the first two policemen to reach the site, curtly asking the officers "to let them to do their job".

The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund

In the wake of the Princess of Wales's premature death, a Memorial Fund was established to receive charitable donations from members of the public. Its goal is to commemorate the life of the Princess and to support the causes with which she was associated. The first disbursements, totalling £13 million, were made from the Fund in March 1998. The six causes of which the Princess of Wales was either patron or president at the time of her death each received grants of about £1 million ($1.6 million). These were: Centrepoint, the 7

English National Ballet, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, The Leprosy Mission, the National AIDS Trust and the Royal Marsden National Health Service Hospital Trust. The Osteopathic Centre for Children, for whose new centre the Princess was to have launched the 'Sweet Pea Appeal' in September 1997, also received a grant of £1 million. A similar amount will also be apportioned amongst organisations concerned with land mine issues. The Trustees further set aside around £5 million ($8 million) to be shared between the 95 charitable causes with which the Princess had previously been involved. These organisations are being asked to submit proposals to the Fund based on projects for 'vulnerable young people', 'children', 'the socially excluded' and 'survivors'. In June 1998, the Memorial Fund announced grants totalling over £548,000 to 10 charity projects. The Memorial Fund has also awarded a £1 million grant to Park House in the surroundings of the Sandringham Estate in west Norfolk. Park House is a specially designed hotel for disabled people run by the Leonard Cheshire Foundation, and the grant will be used to develop a day care centre for disabled people in the local community. Since its beginning in 1997, the memorial fund has continued to give grants to charities and similar organisations as a 'living memorial' to Diana, Princess of Wales.

The Will of Diana, Princess of Wales When Princess Diana died tragically on August 31, 1997 she left behind a £21.5 million (approximately $35 million) fortune, most of which was bequeathed to her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. The inheritance will be held in trust for the two princes until they reach the age of 30. In her will made public on March 2, 1998, Diana also left 50,000 pounds to her former butler, Paul Burrell, and set aside personal momenta for her 17 godchildren.

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At Diana’s Funeral Elton John performed his updated rendition of "Candle in the Wind," a song for film legend Marilyn Monroe, whose own tragic life, like Diana's, ended at the age of just 36. 7 "Goodbye England's rose, may you ever grow in our hearts. You were the grace that placed itself where lives were torn apart. You called out to our country, and you whispered to those in pain. Now you belong to heaven, and the stars spell out your name. And it seems to me you lived your life like a candle in the wind: never fading with the sunset when the rain set in. And your footsteps will always fall here, along England's greenest hills; your candle's burned out long before your legend ever will. Loveliness we've lost; these empty days without your smile. This torch we'll always carry for our nation's golden child. And even though we try, the truth brings us to tears; all our words cannot express the joy you brought us through the years. Goodbye England's rose, from a country lost without your soul, who'll miss the wings of your compassion more than you'll ever know."

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