Diana: Remembering The Princess


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Sun Lion

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New book by Ken Wharfe and a co-author.

Link below has some interesting anecdotes, Camilla’s neglect of her swimming pool etc, …

But … what was going on with Diana?

Why would a parent decide they wanted to act in such a way to their child, deciding she wanted to “annoy William” when she visited him at his school.

And then announce her decision to her bodyguard.

And then do so, embarrassing him in front of his school friends.

Who thinks ahead that they will do such a thing.

(Not a reaction, in the heat of the moment, to a fraught family interaction, which even then as the parent, well …)


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-KEN-WHARFE-reveals-Princesss-rebellions.html
 
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New book by Ken Wharfe and a co-author.

Link below has some interesting anecdotes, Camilla’s neglect of her swimming pool etc, …

But … what was going on with Diana?

Why would a parent decide they wanted to act in such a way to their child, deciding she wanted to “annoy William” when she visited him at his school.

And then announce her decision to her bodyguard.

And then do so, embarrassing him in front of his school friends.

Who thinks ahead that they will do such a thing.

(Not a reaction, in the heat of the moment, to a fraught family interaction, which even then as the parent, well …)


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-KEN-WHARFE-reveals-Princesss-rebellions.html

Because she was damaged by an appalling childhood and was too immature when she married and became a parent. Diana needed much different than what she got from marriage and life. She never dealt well with anything because she never had any opportunity to develop emotional strength and resilience.
 
Because she was damaged by an appalling childhood and was too immature when she married and became a parent. Diana needs mulch different than what she got from marriage and life. She never dealt well with anything because she never had any opportu it’s to develop emotional strength and resilience.

A proper psychological biography would be a good thing at some point FigTree … not that I’m expecting one … but a book that provides some insight to what was behind her outward behaviour.

Even the caring, helpful side of her character, that public facade. The need to do “good”, and to be seen to do good, that created a contrast to the cold, unfeeling Royal Family etc., that whole narrative about her.

(I once read two biographies of Jackie Kennedy Onassis. One just a shopping list of she went here, she did that, and the other putting forth the idea, and providing evidence, that she suffered from PTSD from sitting beside her husband when he was assasinated. Her character and behaviour changed, the author gave examples. I got so much more from this second book and felt a lot of sympathy for her. Despite the outward glamour of her life following that time, it was not a life to envy, because of the damage.)
 
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, as the child of an alcoholic father and divorced parents who bitterly hated one another, was profoundly wounded psychologically even before the trauma of witnessing her husband's murder.

But unlike Diana, Jackie had developed a strong sense of her own identity prior to marriage and motherhood. She possessed deep reserves of empathy and emotional intelligence, and Caroline and JFK Jr benefitted from it.

Diana used her children as emotional buffers and transferred her pain onto them.

Jackie went out of her way to protect her young children from her trauma, even putting them into therapy after Dallas.

("Diana And Jackie: Myths, Maidens, Mothers" Auth. Jay Mulvaney..."America's Queen: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis" auth.Sarah Bradford)
 
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Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, as the child of an alcoholic father and divorced parents who bitterly hated one another, was profoundly wounded psychologically even before the trauma of witnessing her husband's murder.

But unlike Diana, Jackie had developed a strong sense of her own identity prior to marriage and motherhood. She possessed deep reserves of empathy and emotional intelligence, and Caroline and JFK Jr benefitted from it.

Diana used her children as emotional buffers and transferred her pain onto them.

Jackie went out of her way to protect her young children from trauma, even putting them into therapy after Dallas.

("Diana And Jackie: Myths, Maidens, Mothers" Auth. Jay Mulvaney..."America's Queen: Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis" auth.Sarah Bradford)

Very insightful answer. Jackie’s childhood before she ever got married was complex. She was one of many in her mother’s second family. There were
, I think, seven children all in including step and half siblings. All who lived with them as her step father had custody. And that didn’t include half siblings and steps of those children who were also around. Gore Vidal was a half sibling of two of her step siblings. Which is how they got friendly. She also, like her mother, had a foul temper when young but she learned to control it as she got older. I remember one story of her kicking in a door during a fight with one sibling. Her mother, I seem to remember was often overwhelmed by managing all those children. In many ways her family set up resembled the current Earl Spencer’s family. However, Jackie while like Diana having often complex relationships with her actual parents, including a troubled father she adored, was very close to her stepfather who was a wonderful influence on her and her step siblings…particularly the one brother older than her. Her stepfather walked her down the aisle. Diana wasn’t and really had no such touchstones to help her develop resilient self worth. She didn’t get on with Raine in her younger days and relations with both parents was often widely dysfunctional although like Jackie she had a flawed father she adored.

She was tough was Jackie, secretive and cold at times but Diana was all open wounds.
 
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Insightful thoughts Moonmaiden23 and FigTree.

It’s certainly not just the newer generations who have had to deal with emotional trials and hardships while growing up and forging a life.

Mr Wharfe has the benefit of being able to relay first-hand knowledge, experience and a relationship with the late Princess, so I’m hoping there are some interesting anecdotes to come from him.

I haven’t seen that his book is to be serialised, but maybe there will be two or three days of articles in the regular media, based on what he has shared.

Not his first book on the late Princess from what I saw, and seems it’s already on the shelves here in Australia.

(Released for the 25th year since her passing.)
 
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