Bill Adler - Diana: A Portrait in Her Own Words

Diana

A Portrait in Her Own Words

E DITED BY B ILL A DLER

To the entire world, she seemed born to be a princess. The endless reach of her charisma, her effortless glamour, and her eventual, unprecedented candor utterly transformed our notions of royaltyforever.

By the time her spectacular wedding was held, the words fairy tale were regularly used everywhere to describe the event. At her wrenchingly premature funeral, it seemed that the whole planet ground to a halt.

Between these two seismic events lived the most beloved royal presence of our century, and one that was surely as multifaceted as any present-day celebrity. The radical twists and turns in her brief life drew the fascination of millions. For surely no figure in our time has been the subject of more printed words in just sixteen years of public life than Princess Diana.

Yet the most photographed woman in history was also the most seldom quoted. Indeed, other than her famous BBC Panorama interview in 1995, her actual words were rarely heard, and never gathered. Until now.

A scrupulous search for every significant recorded word has resulted in this book, the only collection of her revelatory remarks and insights that takes you through her magical and tragic life.

Behind the headlines, behind the highborn pedigree, behind the Shy Di veneer dwelled a woman of extraordinary resourcefulness, stamina, andperhaps above allexcruciating vulnerability. Today, her frankness about the events and people around her is both disarming and startling.

Take her at her wordher own wordsand discover the astonishing clarity, endless warmth, and surprising wit that she brought to her legendary life. This is an intimate self-portrait of the woman who became the Peoples Princess.

This is the closest we will ever get to an autobiography.

On her happy early childhood

A lot of nice things happened to me when I was in nappies [diapers].

Her favorite childhood home, Parker House, was endlessly explorable, and filled with wonderful memories of so many pranks. I can see myself now, seated on the nursery floor, playing with my toys, totally into my own thing.

I hated to be indoors [as a child].

My father said, Treat everybody as an individual and never throw your weight around. I was brought up to look after others.

On her differences

I always felt very detached from everyone else. I knew I was going somewhere different, that I was in the wrong shell.

I was supposed to be a boy.

When her mother and father each gave her a new dress to wear at a cousins wedding, she was rendered immobilized: I cant remember which one I wore, but I remember being totally traumatized by it because it would show favoritism.

On her early ambitions

I said to my father when I was thirteen, I know Im going to marry someone in the public eye, thinking more of being an ambassadors wifenot the top one. I always had this thing inside me that I was different. I didnt know why. I couldnt even talk about it, but in my mind it was there.

She once wished to be a ballerina, but she grew too tall. I rather overshot the mark, she said.

On school

Dianas memories of school were quite mixed. There were a lot of tears, because I hated leaving home. But Ive built up so much from it maybe not in the academic world. I love being outdoors, and I was captain of this and that, and I won endless cups for diving and swimming, which I adore. Thats why I really enjoyed it, just having lots of friends.

Discussing her time at West Heath private school in Sevenoaks, Kent, where she boarded from 19721977: I was a St. Triniansstyle terror, often in trouble. In spite of what my headteachers thought, I did actually learn something, although you wouldnt have known so from my O-level results. My years at West Heath were certainly happy ones. I made many friends, who I often see. Perhaps now when future generations are handing out punishments for talking after lights out, pillow fights, or illegal food, they will be told to run six times round this hall.

Punishment for misbehavior at boarding school was running six times around the assembly hall or weeding the garden. I became a great expert at weeding.

I wasnt any good at anything at school; I just felt hopeless. A dropout.

On the volatile marriage of her parents

The whole thing was very unstable. I remember my mother crying. Daddy never spoke to us about it. We could never ask questions. Too many nannies.

The night her parents broke up was just awful, awful.

The divorce of parents is a discovery no small child can bear.

On her sisters

[My sisters] always seemed to be leaving me behind.

She once told her nanny, Mary Clarke: I cant wait to grow up and be like my sister Sarah. I cant wait to fall in love and get married and have lots of children. But Ill never marry unless I really love someone. If youre not really sure you love someone you might get divorced. I never want to be divorced.

On her fathers second wife, Raine

The Spencer children loathed their fathers lover, Raine, whom he married in 1976. I couldnt bear Althorp [fathers estate] anymore, Diana said. A hard Raine was falling. The children also referred to her as Acid Raine, and regularly chanted within earshot the nursery rhyme, Rain, Rain, Go Away.

When Charles recalled for the press how hed noticed Diana as an attractive sixteen-year-old, she remarked, I suppose it makes a nice little segment of history, but I think he barely noticed me at all.

Charles reencountered Diana when she was nineteen, in the summer of 1980. Three years had passed, and he noted, No more puppy fat. She blushed, and joked: Im just taller now. Ive stretched the puppy fat.

During that encounter, Diana mentioned how touched she had been watching him on television at the funeral of his beloved great-uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten. You looked so sad when you walked up the aisle at the funeral. It was the most tragic thing Ive ever seen. My heart bled for you when I watched it. I thought: Its wrong. You are lonely. You should be with somebody to look after you.