Diana, Princess of Wales

Chapter 1: The People’s Princess

Diana Princess of Wales died in a car accident in Paris on 31 August 1997. Six days later, more than a million people went to London to remember her. They came to London from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, America, Australia, and many, many more countries. Most of them carried flowers - there were hundreds and hundreds of flowers. They waited in the streets all night. They talked about Diana and remembered her. And in the morning they watched Diana’s body go along the quiet streets, and they said goodbye to her. People from all over the world - perhaps one thousand million people - watched on TV.

Everybody was very quiet. Diana, ‘The People’s Princess’, was dead. But who was Diana, and why did so many people watch and remember her? What did she do when she was alive? Why did people love her so much?

Chapter 2: Young Diana

Diana Spencer was born on 1 July 1961 at Sandringham in England. The Queen of England has a big house in Sandringham, near Diana’s first home. Diana’s mother and father were friends of the Queen. Diana had two older sisters, so she was the third girl in the Spencer family. But her father wanted a son, and two years later Diana’s brother was born. Diana loved her young brother. She played with him all the rime. He was always a good friend to her.

But Diana’s mother and father were not happy. When Diana was eight years old, her mother divorced her father and went to live with a man in Scotland. The four children stayed with their father, but they often visited their mother. It was hundreds of kilometres from Sandringham to Scotland. Their father put them on the train in the morning, and in the evening they were with their mother in Scotland. On the train, Diana and her brother talked and laughed a lot. But they were not happy about their mother and father.

In 1975, Diana’s father and his children moved to a big house called Althorp. Diana’s father was very rich, and when Diana was sixteen he married a new wife, Raine. But Diana didn’t want a new mother. She didn’t like Raine, and at first she didn’t talk to her.

Diana was not good at school work. But she always liked young children, and she tried to help them. She liked games, and swimming and running and dancing. She was very tall, but she wanted to be a dancer.

Chapter 3: Diana meets Prince Charles

When she was sixteen, Diana went to London and worked in schools for very young children. She loved children, and they liked her too. And she always tried to help them, when they were unhappy.

Diana’s sister Sarah was a friend of the Queen’s son, Prince Charles, and Charles sometimes visited her at Althorp. One day Diana talked to him. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You were on TV when your great-uncle - Lord Louis Mountbatten - died. You were very unhappy.’

‘Yes, I was,’ Charles said. ‘He was a good man. I liked him very much.’

Diana always tried to help unhappy people. She and Charles talked for a long rime. She liked Charles, and he liked her. They laughed a lot, and soon they were good friends.

Everybody wanted to read about Prince Charles’s girlfriends, and see pictures of them. In London, newspaper men and photographers came to Diana’s house. They took photographs of her in the street, and asked her questions. ‘Do you love Prince Charles?’ they asked. ‘Are you going to marry him?’ Diana didn’t answer, and walked away from them.

When he was younger, Charles loved a girl called Camilla. He wanted to marry her, but she married a man called Andrew Parker-Bowles. Charles was not happy about this. Camilla Parker-Bowles did not stop being his friend, but he wanted a wife. And Diana was a very nice girl.

On February 6 1981, at Windsor Castle, Charles asked Diana to be his wife. At first Diana laughed, but then she said ‘Yes.’ She was nineteen years old, and he was her first boyfriend.

Diana married Charles in London on 29 July 1981. The streets of London were full of people. Millions of people watched on TV all over the world. There were pictures and stories about Diana and Charles in newspapers and magazines.

In the magazine pictures Diana was young and beautiful. But was she happy?

Chapter 4: Children and Illness

At first, Diana was happy with Charles. On June 21 1982, their first son, Prince William, was born. Diana was a good mother and loved him very much.

But Diana and her son did not always stay at home. Because she was a princess, she visited many countries with her husband. In spring 1983, Diana and Charles visited Australia and New Zealand. They took Prince William with them.

Everybody in Australia wanted to see Diana. She was on TV and in the newspapers, and the streets were always lull of people. But sometimes this was difficult for Prince Charles. Everyone wanted to see Diana and give her flowers, but no one wanted to see him. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he laughed. ‘I’m a man, I’m not very important. I’m here to carry the flowers for my wife.’ But he wasn’t very happy about this.

It was difficult fur Diana, too. Photographers always followed her, and her photograph was in every magazine. The photographers wanted new photographs every day. ‘Why don’t they stop?’ she asked. ‘I need to be alone sometimes.’ But the photographers never stopped.

They followed her all the rime, day and night.

In the photographs she was always a beautiful, happy, young mother. But that wasn’t always true. Diana was often unhappy and ill. She was unhappy about her husband, Charles, and his old girlfriend, Camilla Parker-Bowles. Charles often talked to Camilla on the telephone, and sometimes he visited her. Diana was angry about this, and she was unhappy, too. She didn’t have many friends in Buckingham Palace. And because she was unhappy, she began to be ill.

Diana’s illness was called bulimia. She liked to eat a lot. But after eating, she was usually ill. She was often hungry, and she wanted to eat. But then she was nearly always ill, so she didn’t get fat.

She was unhappy and afraid, too. Sometimes she wanted to die. She needed love and help. But Charles didn’t understand her. He was angry and unhappy about her bulimia, and he didn’t know how to help. But, very often, he went to see Camilla.

Chapter 5: Divorce

Diana and Charles’s second son, Harry, was born on 15 September 1984. By this time, Diana was tired of Charles, because he didn’t understand her. And she was angry, too, because of his girlfriend, Camilla. ‘There are three people in this marriage,’ she once said. ‘And that is no good?

Diana stayed with Charles for eight more years, because of their children. They worked a lot, but they did different things. In 1992, they visited India. One day, Charles went to meet some important people. Diana didn’t go with him; she visited a famous Indian temple, the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal is a temple to love; husbands and wives often go there because they are in love. But Diana went there alone, without her husband. Hundreds of photographers took pictures of her, alone in front of the Taj Mahal.

All the newspapers and magazines talked about Diana and Charles. ‘They are unhappy,’ they said. ‘He doesn’t love her, and she doesn’t love him? Some of the newspaper people liked Charles, and some liked Diana. But every day, the photographers followed them. And the newspapers always asked questions. ‘Has Diana got a man friend?’ they asked. ‘Does Charles love Camilla?’

Charles and Diana were more and more unhappy.

After 1992, Diana stopped living with Charles, and four years later, in 1996, she divorced him. So then she was a mother with two children, but no husband. She lived in a big house in London, Kensington Palace.

Diana didn’t love Charles, but of course she loved her children. Charles loved them too. Halt of the lime William and Harry lived with Diana, and half of the time they lived with Charles. Diana was unhappy when her mother and father were divorced, and she remembered that now. She played with her children a lot, and talked to them all the time. She tried to be a good mother. It was the most important thing in the world to her.

But everything was difficult for them, because of the photographers. The photographers were always there, every day, all the time. Diana could never forget them.

Chapter 6: The most beautiful Woman in the World

Diana hated many of the photographers, but she liked some of them too. The newspaper people and the photographers were very important for Diana, Sometimes they helped her, sometimes she was angry with them. Bur she could not live without them.

When she was a young girl she was not very beautiful. She was tall, and she was sometimes fat, too, because she liked eating. She was an ordinary, nice girl. Of course she wanted to look nice, but she did not think that she was very beautiful. There are millions of more beautiful girls all over the world.

But one day, Diana married a Prince. And because she married a Prince, everybody wanted photographs of her. Her photograph was in newspapers and magazines every day. All over the world, people talked about her clothes and her face and her body. And so, of course, Diana began to think about these things too.

She liked clothes, and she was very rich. Many people made exciting clothes for her. Because she had beautiful clothes, she wanted a beautiful body too. Diana always liked swimming and dancing, but now she worked a lot. Every day she went swimming or dancing or running, and soon her body was healthy and beautiful. This helped with her bulimia, too. She stopped feeling ill; she began to feel healthy and happy.

And because she was healthy and happy, she was much more beautiful. She had exciting, expensive clothes, and a beautiful body, coo. More and more newspapers and magazines wanted photographs of this beautiful princess. There were pictures of Diana in every country in the world. Everybody wanted to see them.

One day a French magazine asked: ‘Who is the most beautiful woman in the world?’

It wasn’t a difficult question. The answer was easy. The most beautiful woman in the world was Diana, of course. Diana, Princess of Wales.

And more and more photographers followed her, all the time.

Chapter 7: Helping People

Diana was rich and beautiful. She had many rich and famous friends. But she liked ordinary people, too. And ordinary people liked her.

When she was young she always loved children, and wanted to help them. So now she worked with many charities to help children in hospital. She worked with one important charity at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, in London.

The Queen and Prince Charles often visit hospitals and help charities. They ask people to give money to the hospitals and charities. People listen to them because (hey are famous. Diana was famous and beautiful, too. So a lot of people started to give money to Diana’s charities.

But when Diana visited children in hospital, she wanted to give them more than money. She wanted to give them love. She sat on their beds and talked to them. She listened to them. Sometimes she hugged them with her arms. She cried to make them happy. And the photographers took pictures of her with the children.

In 1989, she visited a hospital for people with AIDS. People with AIDS are often very ill; many of them die, very slowly. At that time most people didn’t understand AIDS. They didn’t like people with AIDS, and they were afraid to touch them.

When Diana visited the AIDS hospital, she wasn’t afraid. She sat on a bed next to a man with AIDS. Then she took his hand. She talked to him for a long time, and listened to him too. The people with AIDS loved her. She made them very happy.

‘It’s OK to touch people with AIDS,’ she said. ‘You can’t get AIDS from that. These people are ill, and they need our love. So we must touch them, and talk to them, and listen to them, too.’

There were pictures of Diana and the people with AIDS on TV, and in all the newspapers. People loved her because of the photographs. And Diana was happy about these photographs, too. Sometimes, it was good to have photographers.

Chapter 8: Lepers and Landmines

Diana helped many charities. And she always talked co ordinary people and listened to them. Sometimes she hugged them, too. People wanted to meet her because she was famous and rich and beautiful. But they loved her because she was ordinary, like them. She was an ordinary young mother. She took their hands and hugged their children. Sometimes she sat on their beds and laughed with them like a young schoolgirl.

In Africa she visited hospitals for lepers. Lepers are very ill, and many people are afraid of them. But Diana wasn’t afraid. She touched the lepers and calked to them. ‘They are ordinary people, coo,’ she said. ‘They need help and love.’

In Calcutta she visited Mother Teresa’s hospital for children. Many of these children have no home and no mother or father. Diana sat down and talked to them, too. People loved her because of this.

And when Diana visited the hospitals, the photographers took photographs for the newspapers and magazines. So people learned about the hospitals and began to give money to them.

In 1997, Diana learned about landmines. Landmines arc a cheap and easy weapon, and people use them all over the world. You put them under the ground, and when people walk on them - sometimes years later - they explode. Sometimes people die, but more often they lose a foot, or a leg. Very often, young children stand on landmines when they are playing.

Diana wanted to help these people, and she wanted to stop landmines, too. First she went to Angola, then she went to Bosnia. She visited people and listened to them. ‘People must stop making these landmines,’ she said. ‘There is nothing good about them. We don’t need bad things like this in the world.’

And as usual, the photographers and TV cameramen took photographs of her, and the TV and newspaper people talked about her. All over the world, people began to say: ‘We don’t need landmines. We must stop this.’

People listened to Diana because she was beautiful and famous. And so she helped people.

Chapter 9: The Accident

But many of the photographers were not interested in landmines. They were interested in Diana’s men friends. After Bosnia, Diana went to the Mediterranean. She stayed with a rich man called Dodi al Fayed. They were very happy, but photographers followed them all the time. In September 1997 Diana and Dodi went to Paris. First they went to the Ritz Hotel to eat. The photographers waited for them in the street.

At midnight, Diana and Dodi got into a black Mercedes car; they wanted to go to Dodi’s house. Two of Dodi’s men were with them. Some photographers followed them, and the driver of the car wanted to get away from them. But he went very fast - perhaps a hundred and sixty kilometres an hour - and the black Mercedes had a bad accident. Dodi and the driver, Henri Paul, died in the car. Diana died two hours later in hospital.

A week later, more than a million people came to London to remember Diana. Nearly all of them carried flowers. They put thousands of flowers in front of Diana’s home, Kensington Palace. Diana’s brother and her two sons, William and Harry, followed Diana’s body along the streets of London. Prince Charles and the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, walked with them. Hundreds of charity workers followed behind them. The Queen watched them go.

People watched and cried. They listened to Elton John’s song ‘Goodbye England’s Rose’. Then Diana’s brother talked about his sister. ‘Diana helped many people,’ he said. ‘She helped people with no homes, and people with no legs because of landmines. She helped lepers and people with AIDS. She liked to help unhappy people, because she was often unhappy too.’

Diana’s brother was angry with the photographers. ‘They always followed her,’ he said. ‘She was never alone. And the newspapers often said bad things about her, too. I don’t know why. Perhaps they are afraid of good people.’

Diana’s body is on an island in the middle of a lake near Althorp House. Her brother docs not want hundreds of people to visit her there, or take photographs. She can sleep quietly there.

But sometimes her brother and her sons, William and Harry, come to visit her.