I'll be open about it - I love the
Royal Family. I eagerly watch Prince Harry's escapades, especially his flirtations with his stunning South African girlfriend. I remember the very first photos of Prince William after he was born, and the ones of his first day at Eton. Ive seen the latest pictures of Beatrice and Eugenie and have wondered at how fast they have grown up. I've always thought Andrew, Edward and Charles rather suave in their suits, especially in their younger days, and Ive often wondered how it is that the Queen never seems to look any different, I swear she looks just the same now as she did thirty years ago.
But its always been Diana that I loved the most (when I was smaller I collected close to 5 or 600 photos of her and her children, and when I was older I marvelled at how she managed to cope with it all at the age of 19 and 20!!). Im incredibly glad that this
book was published before the Andrew Mortons of the world discovered that there was a money spinning bandwagon to be jumped on.
Because before Diana's tragic death on 31 August 1997, before the Queen's annus horribulus , 1992, before Charles and Diana separated, before the presence or impact of Camillla Parker Bowles was publicly known, before the births of Princes William and Harry (whose arrival was commented on by Prince Charles with disappointment that he was a boy and that he looked like a Spencer), for all intents and purposes,
there was a real life fairytale.
A
beautiful nineteen
year old girl, who was not quite a commoner, but not a royal either, fell in love with and married her Prince Charming. And the most important function of this book is that, published in the
time that we all were caught up in the fairytale, it has documented the very fact that IT DID HAPPEN.
For those who do not
believe in real life fairytales, get your hands on a copy of this book, because you have to see its' glorious photographs. Diana's shy but beautiful smile leaps at us from every page, her stunning face peeps around every corner, and Charles is ever debonair and sleek.
THIS book is the proof that for one moment in time, the world had a fairytale to believe in. For that short space, the Windsors gave us something beautiful, something that would take our minds off terrorism (in the country where I live), moral decay, stress, pressure - they gave us something tangible that allowed us to believe that there was something AMAZING out there.
The book starts its story in 1980 when Lady Diana Spencer was living with three other girls in a flat in Knightsbridge, in the UK - she was embarking on the single most life changing experience that she ever would. It ends in April 1982, the year of its' publication, and also the year of the birth of Prince William, where Princess Di was starting out on another very, very exciting, challenging journey. At the age of 20, she was to become the mother of the boy born to be king. How much harder to parent such a boy than to parent your son or mine, of whom nothing nearly so grandiose is expected!! And yet, William's public persona at least (I know nothing of his private one) is a credit to both his parents. It's apt that the book leaves Di at the start of this huge step, because little more than a year or two later, the world began to realise that the fairytale was over.
In between these two periods was the little matter of the Royal Wedding, which simply has to be the most celebrated wedding of all time.
The book is a memorial to Diana's carefree heydays (I do believe that Diana's special place in our hearts came from the time that we clapped eyes on her, a refreshingly beautiful, young (but steadfast in her beliefs! Who could forget her break with royal tradition by not only taking baby William with her overseas, but taking him on the same plane as her!) and open addition to the formerly closed and rather stuffy Royal Family). It's also a credit to Charles, who, when you consider what is kout how he was forced into making some sort of a marriage, but was in love with an (at the time) inaccessible woman, must have found it exceptionally difficult to put on as good a show as he did. Let's face it, he was half the attraction of the spectacular wedding. Most boys who are dominated by their mothers are not the sons of the Queen and are much easier able to assert themselves!
I thank Charles and Di for enriching my childhood with their magic, and I thank Trevor Hall, who did not know when he wrote this book in 1982, how profoundly nostalgic and heartwarming I would find it in 2005.
Go out there and find this book.
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