It was in her last conversation with Richard Kay (Aug 30 night) that she told him she was going to quit all her formal duty to her charities and to be a PRIVATE person. Richard Kay wrote down the conversation in his tribute to her on Aug 31st, "The Diana I knew".
"Six hours before the Princess of Wales and the man she loved were killed in a paparazzi car chase, she telephoned me from Paris. She told me she had decided to radically change her life. She was going to complete her obligations to her charities and to the anti-personnel landmines cause and then, around November, would completely withdraw from her formal public life. She was dreaming of being a PRIVATE person.
"In my view, as someone close to the Princess for almost five years, Dodi Al Fayed was a significant factor in that decision. She was in love with him and, perhaps more important, she believed that he was in love with her and that he believed in her. I cannot say for certain that they would have married but in my view it was likely.
None of this would mean, she explained, an end to the good works that she had become so closely identified with. Dodi Al Fayed's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, had agreed to finance a charity for the victims of mines and, with Dodi's encouragement she also had sketched out the framework of a plan to open hospices for the dying all over the world"
Memories Of Diana - The Diana I Knew - By Richard Kay* - Princess Diana Remembered
The decision came very suddenly on Aug 29 or Aug 30, but this is not the only one she made around the time. Another one was she would
live almost entirely abroad . On Aug 29, Diana had a 40 minutes telephone call with Paul Burrell. Though he refused to disclose the content of the phonecall in the hearing, in a letter to the Coroner of the Inquest to Diana and Dodi's death, Paul Burrell disclosed that
"The Princess made it clear to me that she was disheartened by the media to such an extent that she intended to live almost entirely abroad whilst retaining her London home at Kensington Palace. This worried me a great deal and I've always regarded the Princess to be patriotic as she was. This secret might damage her reputation"
Also, in the phone call to Franz Klein on Aug 29, Dodi said "
My friend doesn't want to stay in England. We want to move into the villa, Frank, because we are getting married in October or November." And then on Aug 30, once arrived in Paris, the couple went for a tour of the Villa Windsor immediately for 40 minutes, which they had already visited before on July 26th. This decision was very sudden also, because the trip to Paris was not planned. It was a last-minute decision made on Aug 29th.
I think the trigger of these decisions was the attack from the politician due to the
Le Monde interview published on Aug 27th. The remarks "its (Labor) position on the subject (landmine) was always clear. It's going to do tremendous work. Its predecessor (Tory) was so hopeless" angered some Conservative MPs. But in an official statement Diana strongly denied she'd ever said Tory was hopeless. However it still brought furious accusations on her.
"It was serious dangerous to drag the Royal Family into Party politics. I don't think we ought to allow one young to coming up to middle-aged woman to alter the British constitution. If you're going to have the trappings of royalty then you have to behave like one. If the Princess was unwilling to behave in a way commensurate her role, she should GO AWAY and be a PRIVATE citizen" -- David Wiltshire, Tory MP
"Diana must keep out of politics -- and that if she would not, she should be 'disciplined' by the Royal Household. She ought to be reprimanded and told that, as a royal, she is not to enter the political arena. I wished she'd keep quiet and not seek so much publicity. She could have been a Hollywood star for the way she attracts publicity. Whether she does it unconsciously or with a view of getting the headlines, I don't know, but she cannot side with one particular government anymore than the Prince of Wales can."-- Sir James Hill, Tory MP
It seems Diana's decisions were a direct response to these politicians request -- go away and be private. Moreover, the demand of her to "keep quite" and "not seek publicity" indicated they knew what was her real intention behind all those acts.
All of these are sudden decisions, however she chose to disclose to Richard Kay, that means she wanted the public to know about them. The Olso conference was coming soon, and she had already gathered so much attention by then, it was time to use them now. And Richard Kay was her speaker to the public, she would use him a lot. Actually, she had invited Richard Kay for lunch on Aug 31st. From the conversation with Richard Kay, it seems she wanted the politicians know that she would subject to their request, but she had to complete her obligation to landmine first.
Another new information is Mr Al Fayed Senior had "agreed to" finance a charity for mine victims. In Bosnia, Ken Rutherford (her campaign partner) said the purpose of her trip was to show that she wanted true actions to help the victims.
"Right now I think it is a forgotten issue that people get hurt by landmines is forgotten. There are many speeches, but there isn't reaction. And she is showing she wants actions for the victims. They are smart, intelligent, if you give them a leg, they have a life." -- Ken Rutherford's interview to ITN
By setting up a charity for mine victims herself, she set up an example to the world what was true action. Actions would give true power to her words if she wanted to persuade the policy makers to follow her step to show true actions to help the victims. It would be viewed as a hypocrite to persuade other to show true actions, while she herself didn't have any action at all.
Right. According to Richard Kay, it was Dodi's father who was going to fund the landmine charity. We know that Diana helped to raise a lot of money to charity, but we have no way of knowing how much she gave personally. Diana did wonderful work in fundraising and had a genuine desire to help people. However, I agree with you US Royal Watcher that many people work a long, hard, slog being generous and kind to people every single day. Many people live with the mentally ill, alcoholics, drug addicts, the injured, the physically ill, and aging parents who need constant care. As much as I look back with fondness at the example that Diana set in her charity work, I realize that she didn't live with these problems. She cared and she made visits and drew attention to important things that other people were doing, but she didn't have the burdens that those other people carried every day. In the last couple of years of her life, she made a few high-profile appearances; but I'm afraid that much of her time was spent on herself. Her children were away at school, and she didn't really have great family responsibilities otherwise.
This is very new. I am aware they were on speaking terms, but even that was fraught (given Diana's emotional turbulence). The idea that Diana would be on the royal yacht with Charles for the world to see, while he has Camilla is tow, does't seem possible/probable. I trust my reading has not misled me.
