Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society - The Real Princess Diana

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

However you feel about the royal family, there's no denying, there was something about Princess Diana.From the clothes she wore to the causes she championed, she set the template for the modern royal, ruffling a lot of feathers in the process.Why did she speak to us so much? Was there any truth to rumours of the affairs both Charles and Diana had? And were the public in any way complicit in her downfall?Helping Kate separate Diana fact from fiction is author and royal historian, Dr. Tessa Dunlop. In the second part of the episode, Kate is speaking to Dominic Wong, curator of the photography exhibition Princess Diana: Accredited Access, to find out the backstory to some of the most iconic photos of Diana during her lifetime.This episode was edited by Tom Delargy. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long.If you enjoy what we're doing, please take one minute to vote for us to win the Listener's Choice Award at the British Podcast Awards! Voting closes on August 29th and we're in the top 10! Simply click here: https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/votingEnjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign here for up to 50% for 3 months using code BETWIXTYou can take part in our listener survey here.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sign up to join me in locations around the world and explore the past. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe. Hello, my lovely bird twixters. It's me, Kate Lister. I hope that you are doing fabulously well, whatever it is that you're up to whilst you're listening to this. Because I've got to tell you, I am in one hell of a good mood. But before I tell you why, I've got to tell you,

this is an adult podcast, spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way covering a range of adult subjects, and you should be an adult too. Right, that was the fair do's warning. Why am I in a good mood? I am in a spectacularly good mood because of you, We are now in the top 10 of the Listeners' Choice Award at this year's British Podcast Awards. Top 10, and that is all thanks to you.

The voting closes on the 29th of August. So if you haven't voted yet, please go to www.w. British Podcast Awards.com forward slash voting and click on betwixt the sheets. And if you've already voted, I won't tell anybody if you go and vote again. Honestly, looking at the other people, the other nine finalists, holy crap guys, we're up against some really, really tough competition. Jonathan Pye is in there. I love him. Help, I sexted my boss.

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Threaten them if needs be. You can blame it on me, I don't mind. And if we all come together, maybe we could actually win it this year. Holy hell, I'm so excited. Right, on with the show. When I say the words, royal scandal to you, you could be forgiven for thinking that we are strolling back to the centuries of the Tudor courts to see the heads rolling off of scaffolds.

But you've got to admit, scandal is something that the royals do particularly well right up to the modern day. And although they're not cutting people's heads off, what they're getting up into the bedrooms is every bit of scandalous as what the Tudors were up to. I mean, Charles and Diana. That was a relationship and a marriage that captured the public's imagination,

both in its formation and, well, in its eventual collapse. Tampongate, anybody? Well, I mean, the less said about that, the better, frankly. Their relationship provided a feast for the tabloid journalists, and is still being retold on the big and small screens to this very day. But what was Diana really like behind the headlines? What was it about her that so captured the public's imagination and catapulted her to, well, dangerous levels of stardom?

I am ready to find out if you are. What do you look for a man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning a knob and pushing the funny. Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, my beautiful time.

Goodness has nothing to do with it, Dary. Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal in society with me, Kate Lister. In an age of celebrity obsessions, I mean, there's thousands of celebrities you can have an obsession with, isn't there? But it can be hard to underestimate the grip that one woman, Princess Diana, had on the general public,

especially here in Britain. Everything from her humanitarian, to what she was wearing at the gym became front page news. And after her divorce to the now King Charles, the world was absolutely gripped. As we approach the anniversary of Princess Diana's

death on the 31st of August, I'm joined by Dr. Tessa Dunlop, royal historian and author, to help us get to know one of the most famous women of the 20th century. And later on in the episode, you'll hear me join Dominic Wong for a walk around his London exhibition,

Princess Diana accredited access, which showcases many of the iconic photographs of Diana during her life to find out the stories behind them and what they can tell us about the woman herself. Without further ado, let's get on with the show. So hello and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Dr. Tessa Dunlop. How are you doing? I'm fine. Thank you very much. I've been brushing up on my Diana facts versus fictions because there's a lot of Diana fictions. There really is, isn't there? And I confess before, I knew I was going to talk to you in before we went to look at Diana exhibition, I don't think I knew a lot about Diana.

I think I knew the sort of the myth of her, really. So I'm fascinated to try and get a bit more into who this woman actually was because she's so iconic. Well, that must mean, Kay, that you're considerably younger than me because I was, what were known as, and still are, to an extent, Diana's daughters. I was born 10 years after she was, and I remember one of the first presents I got was a Diana Lady Bird book where she had the extra highlighted blue eyes

to match the blue cover of the Lady Bird book. And when she got married in 1981, I was seven, and remember there was hardly any TV channels, it was like a family event watching the wedding. And that year, just before the wedding, Charles had come up to open something in Scotland. And there's a picture of me, it's actually on my wall behind me, of me looking really annoyed because we'd got up really especially early

to meet Diana, this amazing princess. And it was just Charles. And it was like, oh, that's the disappointment then, isn't it? And I think one of the problems in them average was this clip, this wonderful clip of Charles, and he's sort of very young and posh. And he does say, oh yes, well, I suppose my future wife will have to get used to me being famous.

Words to that effect. And of course, it was going to be a big shock for Charles because of Diana's mega what popularity. He was there on in forever in the shade. That's so true, isn't it? How old was I when Diana died? I think I was about 14 or 15. And even I remember the absolute shock of it. I remember that. But I've got a kind of hazy memory of when she was alive. But was she always that iconic, hugely popular people were drawn to a woman? Or was that sort of, sort of, of a myth that was weaved after she passed away? No, it was massive. I mean, I knew every page of that Ladybug book off by heart.

There wasn't a huge amount going on in my small life. I lived up in the rural Highlands of Scotland, and it was a very big deal. But, you know, those famous Balmoral honeymoon photographs, her and the kindergarten pictures where the sunlight, you know, backlit, that thin skirt so everyone could see her legs. It was just decent. and at the same time kind of weirdly indecent because she was so young and innocent. But I think there was something about Diana

despite this extraordinary blue-blooded heritage. I mean, she sort of out-aristoed the royal family by quite some way. But there was also this touch of the every woman. She flunked out. She didn't do well at school. Did she? She was shy guys.

I just didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah, she didn't leave school with a single exam. I mean, there was never a. an onus on posh girls getting qualifications. But, I mean, that took the biscuit to not get a single grade. Wow. Can you tell me a bit more about her background? I mean, obviously, as you said, it was very blue-blooded, but I'm interested in where did she grow up? Why didn't she get any qualifications? I had never heard that before. Well, she had a very disjointed, unhappy childhood.

In some ways, the Spencer dynasty, because it was predicated on the arrival of a male air, was more precarious than being a royal and having to deliver an heir and a spare. Because as we know, Queen Elizabeth I first onwards, you could inherit the realm and be a woman. That wasn't the case for the Earl Spencers. It went down the male line. So Johnny marries Francis. It's an ill-matched marriage. Again, big hands. behind the respective thrones pushing the players. It was one of those kind of Aristot deals where it's about progeny and property and not about proper love.

And so it's an unhappy marriage in the get-go. Most of the married life takes place on Sandra and the state where they have a house and where they live, which is why Diane is totally a fe with the royal family from the get-go. She sort of watches Chitty-chitty-bang with Edward and Andrew. She's obviously a lump younger than Charles.

It's a very unhappy marriage. There are two daughters, and of course by this stage, Johnny, you might remember Donnie, who bit timbreed him. I mean, actually, fair to him. By the time he arrived, it was a sort of scene when Diana was married to Charles, he'd had a stroke and was in a pretty bad way, which is why he seemed, you know, even less like the sharp knife in the box. But I mean, I don't think he was ever particularly perspicacious. Very different from his son, today's, our Spencer, Charles. And he was needing a mail-air.

there was a stillborn son, John, they're always named John the Spencer's, who didn't survive, and then along comes another pregnancy, and you can imagine then the pressure on Francis, this must be a boy, and of course out pops Diana. And so forever, in many respects, the disappointment, basically because of her gender. She's the third daughter, and their marriage is on the rocks. She's got terrible postnatal depression, Francis. so she's not allowed to ever hold this baby son, this dead baby son, John. I think it's taken from her, you know, and that sort of posh.

And also, not just posh, but of the period. You know, one didn't do sort of emotion, etc. And it took a while for Charles to arrive, this baited younger son, by which time the marriage was broken. And we know then, infamously, that Francis has an affair. She's castigated as a bolter. It goes to the courts. There's a very public divorce.

all around the same time as huge parts of British establishment are trying to prevent the reform of the marriage laws, the divorce laws. So this is really, really contentious. Francis loses access to her children. She doesn't have access to the children. They land with Johnny. So, and then again, that wasn't uncommon because it goes with, you know, the property. He has the name, he has the contacts. And even Francis's mother speaks against her own daughter. She insists. is very good friends with the Queen Mother, et cetera, et cetera, and they will play a part in shifting Diana into prime position to be married with Charles. She's called Ruth Farmoi, a formidable woman.

And you can imagine the devastation if your mother speaks against you in a divorce court. And this means that for Diana, her childhood is hugely disjointed. And then Johnny inherits Allthrop when his father dies and Diana's 13. So suddenly, the world. she knows at Sandringham, she has to bid farewell to, and she goes to this thumping great mansion in the middle of England with a stepmother who they abhor, Barbara Cartland's daughter, Rain, who opens Allthrop to the public and sells all the grandmasters to make it make money and to pay the inheritance tax. Oh dear. So it's not a happy time. And Diana talks of her early

memories being the departure of her mother down the gravel drive, you know, this kind of of longing, this feeling of abandonment, this failure to understand what's going on, as usual adults getting it wrong, making it super complicated, and children just wanting love. And I think that childhood experience, and also a lot of it, of course, spent away at boarding school, speaks to the two sides of Diana. One was this woman massively capable of empathy, who understood pain because she'd experienced pain, but at the same time he was very emotionally needy, because she hadn't been given the kind of love that we probably take for granted on our own childhoods. Did she know the royal family growing up? Had she met Charles as a child? How did they come into each other's orbit? Was it all just set up?

Well, no, remember, Diana has two older sisters. Now, one is Jane. She marries Robert Fellows, considerably older than her. Again, they're a fay with each other from the Sondringham set. And Robert Fellows will become the Queen's private secretary. Let me get this the right way round. I think he is for a time. Charles's secretary works for Charles and then he works for the Queen. So that's her big sister Jane, pretty conventional marriage to a much older guy, totally on the inside track with the royal family as private secretary. And then he has Sarah, is much more flighty, emotional experiences, eating disorders that we know Diana will later suffer from. She is a is the girlfriend of Charles briefly, just as Diana's on the cusp of sort of teenagehood, that kind of really, Adrian, you're very impressionable. And I think that the relationship doesn't really last. I don't think Sarah ever, you know, intended it to be something serious. It takes a certain type to be able to countenance being part of the royal establishment. And she was also deemed in discreet.

I think she sort of blabbed about the relationship, which is an absolute no-no. But it was in the summer. of 1977, Diana must have been about 17, I think, that she meets Charles Adelthorpe. And you know what 17-year-olds are like? They look like 17 going on 25. They can, you know, quite kind of, Charles would have known about Diana, but suddenly here's this person who's gone from being a child to being on the cusp of a young woman. And his head must have been turned because then I think It's the following year, an invitation arrives at all thought, and it's inviting Diana to his 30th at Buckingham Palace. And she's just a teenager.

And she asks Sarah, her sister, for permission, because although she's no longer going out with Charles, it's still a bit icky, complicated. Yeah, that makes sense. So they were in each other's orbits then. I mean, I know it sounds like a really obvious question, but for just somebody who doesn't know this history very well, whose idea was it that they got married? Was it their idea? Did they fall in love and propose? Or was, because you alluded to players behind the scene.

Well, there was a huge amount of pressure on Charles to get married. I alluded to it with Johnny Spencer needing to find the air for all thought. And I think we forget this now. He was reasonably good looking. We do sometimes forget that. But he was quite hot when he was younger. That is true. Yeah.

From the side profile when he was on a horse playing polo, he looked okay. Remember, if you're a younger sister with two sisters who by this stage, both are going to be married. Sarah very characteristically has a very sort of quick, rapid marriage to Cole Cahoon, I think. So she wants to be like her sisters. But ideally, if you're a sibling, you want to go on better than your sisters. And how to better them is to marry a prince rather than just somebody who works for a prince like Robert Fellows did. But also, posh girls, the ultimate stone ranger, the first stoned ranger, which Diana really was,

there is no career path. It's about killing time until you bag your man. and the better you marry, the presumption is the better your life will be, and suddenly the better your family's life will be, because it will guarantee, as aforementioned, progeny and property, etc., and your place in society. And so, for her, the illusion of Charles was very real, and I even remember, so I was about six or seven, and I remember in the feature magazines, Sunday supplements, there were pictures of Bachelor Charles and all his sort of girlfriends and people he had had dalliard.

with, including Sarah Spencer and Camilla Parker Bowles. So by the time you get to 1978, 79, Diana's come of age. She ticks almost every box. She's very good looking. She's from the right stock. I know that sounds horrific to say, but this is how those circles schooled from the Spencer family. She gets the gig. She knows the protocol. She's been around Royals. She is an aristocrat herself, Lady Diana Spencer. she's presumably Virgo and Taptow, you know, sheltered at boarding schools and did a sort of finishing school in Switzerland she hated and then became a briefly a dance teacher for sort of tiny, tiny tots in London. And then I think her mother buys her a flat for her 18th birthday present, as you do.

And she does a bit of o' pairing. She does do her own cleaning. She cleans for her sisters, which is kind of wonderfully sort of humbling. But in many ways, her working life, if we can refer to it as that, is very humble. might be unskilled, need you'll work, on a par with what we might do if we release to be at 16

and do an MVQ or whatever they're called. You know, it's a polytechnic gig. And so I think, again, in some ways, this makes her relatable. She's not some kind of blue stocking. She's not going to whack us over the head with her degree or her big brain. She's got other skills.

She's not got IQ. She's got EQ. She's got emotional intelligence. And of course, we know that the royal family lack that in spades. So for Charles, by this stage, of course, Camilla is married, so she's out of the picture. It's also a massive thing happens at the end of the 1970s, and that is his mentor in many ways of surrogate father. Mountbatten, Lord Lou Manbatten, is blown up by the IRA just at the time when Diana's been at a hunting party at Sandringham overlap with Charles, being up at Balmoral, again, another sort of deliberate overlap.

And then I think she goes down to a part. party of some sort, just months after the death of Mountbatten. And it's a polo party, Petworth in Sussex. That's right. Just the sort of place where you play polo. And she's already seen how gutted Charles looks on telly, because she's kind of stalking him by now. You know how we do if it's we're teenagers and we're looking at for the person that we fancy on tellies. Absolutely. Most of us are never going to end up marrying him. And she talks to him. They have this chat on the hay bails that's been well recorded. And Diana does, it's her unique brand of empathy. She has

the power, and I think a bit like apparently Bill Clinton has this knack, Obama has it, of making you feel like the only person in the room when you're speaking to them. And so in that moment, Charles is in pain. We know Charles is emotionally needy. Again, he had a childhood where he didn't get much exposure to romping with his mother in the nursery. So she feels that need in that moment, and she's also a gloriously beautiful girl in her late teens. I hadn't realized how much younger she was than him. I hadn't realized that until quite recently. You think it's 13 years? The mother that Diana's nannying the child of, she's an American.

And Diana at some point has to say, look, there's going to be paparazzi at the end of the road because by this stage the press has latched onto the fact she's seeing Charles. This American woman sort of asks her why, and she goes, oh, I've been associated with Prince Charles. And the American, I think it's a Mrs. Robertson said, wow, you know, is this going to lead to something serious? And Diana goes, well, if I'm likely, I'm 19 and he's 32. So she was aware of the age gap and probably seen pretty dashing in a train.

attractive to her, I think. Do you think she loved him? I mean, we'll move on to the wedding. What's it been called? The Wedding of the Century? I mean, it was an enormous event. But do you think she loved him? I'm sure she loved the idea of Charles, 100%.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And in fact, I think she desperately wanted him to love her because she'd fallen in love with the idea of him. And she didn't really know anything else. I just struck me as to how Sheltered Diana was, even though she'd been away to school a bit and stuff, it was just an incredibly sort of restricted life

and then suddenly into this sort of blaze of publicity and I think for both of them, it almost felt before they'd made their minds up, certainly for Charles that it had become a full gone conclusion because of the press coverage and interest and the shy die. She was iconic before she was even the bride to be. It was really weird, actually.

And had the only made, Was it 13 times before they actually got married? That just seems crazy to me. Yes, I suppose Kate, I've spent a lot of time working with veterans from World War II and stuff where a lot of marriages happened very, very quickly. And generally, people didn't have sex before marriage. Now, the weird thing about Charles and Diana's wedding, it was so reminiscent of Charles' parents' wedding.

And indeed, even Diana's parents' wedding, which we know ended up dramatically leading the skis. But what's weird about that? And I write about this in Elizabeth and Philip, actually, is that when Elizabeth and Philip get married in 1947, everyone's doing the same. You get back from war, you bag your man, you crash down the aisle, then you bang out your kids. For better, for worse, domestic recipe for the 40s and 50s.

Hey, presto, the baby boomer generation. The weird thing about Diana and Charles is, this is happening nearly 40 years, 30 years later in 1981, and we've had a massive social revolution. In the 60s and 70s. Yeah. The aristocracy do do stuff their own way, but it just seems like to only meet someone 13 times and she was so young and she couldn't possibly have known him and he can't have known her. But, I mean, that wedding talked to me about the significance. I'm going to assume that you watched it, that you were glued to the, remember it well.

Yeah, I can remember the swirly carpet I sat on. We went to a neighbour's house and we had some nibbles on a plate. And I remember my mom saying to the neighbour on the sofa behind me, the Queen will be so sad that her parents are divorced. Literally. And Mum was probably right. She was probably right. The Queen probably was sad about that?

Absolutely. And that incredible dress that just went on and on and on and on and on forever. I mean, she looked every inch a princess, didn't she? Yeah, the David Emmanuel dress that it was crushed into the glass carriage. Yes. Like the unraveling. It was like the TARDIS back to front.

You know, she gets out of the carriage and it keeps on unwrapping. It's like some kind of never-ending giant blemange cake that's out of control. And then there was that flash of a kiss on the balcony for like a split second, wasn't there? Yeah, it was very zoonastic. It was kind of, like I said, a replica of Elizabeth and Philip in many ways. Wow. But more dramatically so because the outsider was also the young vulnerable one. Whereas when Elizabeth married Phillips, she was start five years as junior, she's still quite young, she's 21, I think.

she was the young vulnerable one, but she was also the insider. She was the firm. It was her realm. So that offset Phillips' vulnerability because he was older, he'd been at war, whereas all the vulnerability, it felt like it lay with Diana. And she stumbles over her vows, which of course makes me hugely lovable. She gets Charles's name wrong in the vows up at the, you know, when she's doing her bit, you realise the nerves that must have been at play. And I think she does get slightly cold feet, such a famous anecdote. that, you know, she sort of says to her sisters, I'm not sure she's into me, or there's some kind of pressing comments she makes,

and they sort of laugh and say, well, you're on the tea tails now. Do you know what you? You better get on with it. It would be lovely to say that this was the fairy tale wedding and the fairy tale marriage, but we know that it wasn't, and things started to fall apart behind the scenes quite quickly. I don't know if they fall apart immediately, actually. I think Charles, like, fancied Diana. If you see the letticey scent, they go on Yacht Britannia for their hundred, or part of their honeymoon. You know, this is a three-legged honeymoon. He talks about so Diana

romping around talking to the crew on deck while he looks at his artistic photographs all down of Charles Darsson. He's always been into art and culture, which is quite sweet because his parents suddenly weren't. And there are two very, very different people. It's really clear from the get-go. But I think she loved him. She loved the idea of being this princess. I think in many ways she found it quite novel. Yeah, there was lonely aspects. She would kind of trust up in the palace. And that's why she goes and have dance lessons and stuff. You know, what do you do you do? do? How do you find your way forward? But I think, you know, Charles tries to make a fist of the marriage. He doesn't, he's not seeing Camilla at the outset of the relationship. They clearly

have a physical relationship. Two children are born. This is a big success, if you think, of the pressure her mother had been under to produce the male air. We have healthy William, healthy house. We know she likes being a mother. So there are aspects of it that aren't an immediate, you know, disaster. And I think it was the physical bit that works to begin with. But, yeah, very quickly, their sort of parallel lives, their interests are so polar opposite. You know, Charles is the actual man. He loves hunting, gardening. He loves the countryside. Whereas we know Diana like pop music. She like fashion. She like partying. She like dancing. So now the Twain will meet in so many respects. And as soon as you start, when you do things alone, and you've also got this third.

person in the marriage potentially, who's also unhappy in her marriage, and she shares interest with you that you might be doing, that makes you vulnerable then to this reconnect. Funnily enough, I sort of feel sorry for Diana that the marriage didn't work, because I kind of know she really wanted it to work, and she loved him. I think she had this really naive idea about her man, her prince, her king, her husband. But I can see how it happened for Charles. I can see how it felt like it almost wasn't cheating with Camilla because he'd been there before. There were things he felt he wasn't being given in his marriage to Diana,

this much younger, probably less intellectual girl, that the hand that had been behind the throne in terms of the pressure on them to get married, Phillips that are famous to said, oh, this will breathe some height into the royal family. It did, too, if you look at William and his height compared to Charles, the queen sort of suggesting to him, it comes good, you marry and you make it work. Oh, the Queen didn't have a bed of roses with Philip. No.

You know, we know that, well, we don't know. It's not confirmed, but it's highly unlikely that Philip is always loyal to the Queen. I didn't know that, Tessa. There's no proof, obviously, capital P. But we'll put it like this. Philip had the same waist size when he was 19 as when he was 90. Really cared what he looked like. He was an incredibly good-looking man.

Okay. He'd been around the block before he married Elizabeth. he had many reasons to fancy Elizabeth, not least her large bosom and her large realm. And I think just like more than Diana, actually, because Elizabeth had got to know Philip better, she really fancied Philip. She really loved Philip.

But I think the Queen also, and Philip likewise, they were totally married to the idea of monarchy. They really, really believed in monarchy. Monarchy was bigger than marriage for them. Do you have monarchy and then you have marriage? And I think for Charles and Diana, it was the other way around. Diana was married for sure and happy marriage.

The monarchy, she's a kid, she's a teenager, she's a woman in her 20s. What's this monarchy nonsense? Represented by a stuffy middle-aged queen and her husband who's probably floating around doing things he shouldn't. I'll be back with Tessa after this short break. One of the most enduring images

that we saw when we were going around the exhibition of Diana photographs is what's been called the revenge dress. And I was just wondering, what are your thoughts? Because Diana's style, that was something that we love. looked at as we're going around about how it changed and how it became almost like a weapon that

she was using. And she emerges from this very naive and vulnerable and kind of not quite sure what she's doing. And suddenly she's got the body, the workout gear, the fashion. I mean, she looks incredible. What are your thoughts about her influence on fashion? Massive. She was huge. It's hard almost to quantify because she was iconic in that. that respect. And when we try and work out what was it about Diana? And I think, why, for instance, didn't Kay Middleton ever have that appeal or Megan or, you know, what was it? There are certain things playing in Diana's favor. One was a mass media without the splintering echo chambers of the social media. So most of the press are on the Royal Family side and on Diana's side, especially

to begin with, they set her up as this princess, this shy, this not victim, but certainly innocent. So if we're not going to have, you know, and we shape her and we go on the journey with her. We grow up with her. We go through those 80s, the buy it, sell it, coming into an era of materialism, how to manage it, leg warm as your blue eye shadow, your wham, your spangles. and Diana gives that an area of acceptability of class and she manages to somehow hold her innocence in an extraordinary way because of the sort of the way she looks down,

that pronounced empathy, the damage, probably that we can see in her and that she sees in us. So there's this direct connection like she's looking down the lens at us and she dresses it and we feel her dress it like when she's in Belmore and I remember one of the pictures on my bedroom wall when I grew up in Hunter, Green Hunter Wellies and a patterned sort of fair old pink and patterned jersey.

And she just rocked it. And I grew up in the countryside, hating being trapped in the countryside. And I was really struck, oh my God, she's managed to rock that look. If she can do it, I can do it, in the heather, in the barren heather, you know, with her prints. And I think she did that for so many people. She could put on a ridiculous purple skirt and it looked good. It looked good because she normalized all our ridiculous. ridiculous 1980s fetishes. And we loved her for it. And even the failures in her marriage,

her unhappiness, the difficulties, her readiness to blush in front of the camera, you do that when you get that from your neck upwards and just flush. She did that for us. And I think we felt grateful to her. And what's interesting is she's this incredibly powerful female icon, but just at the same time as also Mother Teresa, who she meets and who famously dies one day before funeral. Just like Mother Teresa is another sort of female icon from that time, it's really interesting that both women, it's presumed they work for nothing. They don't have to get paid. There are structures that look after them. And what does that say about a brand of femininity that's peddled in the late 80s and early 90s? There is something unthreatening and deeply appealing about a woman who is

serving but not working, not getting paid for it. We're not obviously. She's not. She's not. She paid from the civil list at the time, et cetera. And I think that speaks to the time. We think, oh, we've made it to woman's lid. It was the 1980s, worker moms, slammed the ready meal in the microwave, you know, got their kids to nursery. But actually, it was way more complicated than that. We love Diana because she was everything that was feminine and famous and somehow didn't sully it with professionalism. So final question.

Going around that exhibition, we saw images of Diana. as a mother. And there's so much that you can say about that and how clearly important that was to her. But we also saw these amazing photographs of her as a humanitarian aid worker. And I think that that's easy to forget the work she did with AIDS patients and reaching out and stuff. But as someone that studied this woman and her life, what do you think she would want to be remembered for? Because I would put money on the fact she wouldn't want to be remembered for the fact that she was divorced. I just don't think that she would. What do you think she would want her legacy? to be. I think it would be naive to pretend she didn't grow with the fame and enjoy it to an extent.

It got out of control. Her brother famously said in the funeral eulogy, she was Diana the hunted. But she also worked out how to weaponise the press to an extent. And I think it sounds cliche, but she gifted us the cliche, which was the Queen of Hearts. I think going forward, she would want to be recognized as the woman who put the heartbeat back into monarchy, that idea beyond monarchy that it was okay to be emotionally vulnerable and to do that in public. It was okay to be unbuttoned and chaotic. And there's an irony there that she comes for this incredibly stiff aristocratic setup, which is all about position.

and marriage and social mores and class. Her classlessness, despite being one of the posthous women in Britain, she broke out from that. And you said you remembered her death, her funeral, this extraordinary emotional unbuttoning. Now, I think one of the reasons for that was a lot of us felt we were complicit in her death, that we had consumed that narrative.

That's interesting. That we had not known when to stop. I remember my friend said to me, my God, I feel sick I've been. so badly on Diana's stories in the wake of her death. I said to her, but we binge a before. You know, we bingeate with Diana. We bingeate her narrative.

It was an insatiable appetite. Because remember, the tabloids only deliver what they can sell. Yes. But I think one of the reasons for that was she spoke to us in an area where we still weren't talking about well-being, wellness. Now, to be honest, we're sick to the back teeth of it half the time. You know, the kind of virtue signaling in the victimhood. If I have to see, I'm on some history, what's that way,

but I've had to see one more humble brag. Do you know, I can't manage it. It's so transparent. Can't anyone see through it? I realize I'm just a grumpy, you know, a grumpy Gen X up. But I'm like, guys, just own it. Just say you want a bit of press for this, okay? And you're really pleased with yourself.

I'm going to make myself a note for this. Future things, Tessa says, stop being a humble twat and just own it. Own it. But I think that we've got trouble. We've come over the hill and we've gone down the other side. Diana was dragging us up the hill. She was dragging us up the hill to be more emotional. open to express how we felt, to own the fact that our marriages weren't happy, that our

feelings weren't okay, that our weight didn't feel good, that we had insecurity. She was insecurity personified. And that was the great piteous thing about their marriage. Both of them was so goddamn needy. And she says herself, Diana, you know, Camilla was confident. That's what Charles needed, a confident older woman to buoy him along, to make him feel okay about being a bit of a drip with a macho dad called Philip and a tough as nails mother called Elizabeth. And instead he got this lovely peach on a plate called Diana, who had had that super damaged childhood, who was mega needy. And we see even, you know, just to go to her affairs because, you know, she had affairs. But actually what's really striking about those

affairs is most of them, she, like her wardrobe, she was trying to weaponise to get Charles's attention. She never felt she fully had Charles. And you asked me to go back to one of your original questions, did she love Charles? It's incredible how powerful the unavailable is. And Charles was never, I think she felt she never really had him. And that's very, very painful, but it's also powerful. That famous set two she had with Camilla, where she gets her on her own, she butts into some party there at, she gets her on her own. Camilla says, but you've got everything. And Diana says, but I want my husband. She wants a husband and she can't have him. She loved Charles. whether that was because she couldn't have him.

Different. I'll never know that. Tessie, you've been wonderful. If people want to know more about you and your work, where can they find you? Are you on social media, Tessa? Should we just get people to leave you alone? Instagram and Twitter. I also do Tic-Tac, actually.

Oh, do you? I have quite good fun on TikTok. I use TikTok because I like people dancing and making potatoes. That's really my niche. You've been amazing to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining me today. A pleasure. Lots of love, Kate.

Thank you so much for joining me, Tessa. And now, as we mentioned earlier, here is my conversation with Diana Photography Exhibition Curator Dominic Wong to find out the backstories to some of the most iconic photographs ever taken of her. I am here at the Dockside Vault with Dominic Wong to look at a few super iconic photographs of Princess Diana. Hi, Dominic. It's so nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. Thanks for coming. So tell me a bit about the exhibition. We have 75 life-sized photos of Princess Dana and William, Kate, Harry and Megan, as seen through the lens of her official photographers, Anwar Hussain and his two sons, Sack and Sam. Dominic, tell me about this picture. This is just such a lovely picture full of energy. It seems so different to a lot of them.

Well, this is the famous picture of Princess Dana running in the school sports day race. and she's barefoot, as you can see, with the other mothers. And as you say, it's so energetic because she's trying hard. That is a woman who wants to win, is it? She definitely is. And obviously, why this is significant is because she was such a hands-on mother. And Royal Protocol doesn't say, you know, you can run in the Mother's Day race. You know, it's she took off her shoes and she ran in the race against all Royal Protocol

because she wanted to do it for her sons. And you can see the delight on the faces of the other parents running in a race with Prince of Diana. My goodness, how amazing is that is. What's interesting about this as well, that she was so hot on that she was so important when the kids were growing up. She didn't want a nanny. She didn't want to take them to boarding school. And she wanted to be there all the time. So you can see in the other photos we have here, one with her on a jet ski, one at Naga Falls with both Harry and William.

You know, there's no kind of. Artifice there. Yeah. And nanny's kind of saying, you know, we're going to take you here. And these photos are so natural. And then this one on top right when she's having a laugh with the boys, you know, having a quick refreshment. And, you know, she's pulling faces and pointing and, you know, Williams delighted. You know, that's the kind of woman and mother she was.

And I think that's why so many people connected with her because she felt so real. It didn't feel staged and it didn't feel stiff up a lip like the royals usually. I just felt she was a normal person. This is the famous, well, one of the famous, but a very famous picture from their wedding, isn't it? Tell me what's going on in this image? So this is at St. Paul's Cathedral where they got married. It's just only a less than a mile from this venue. And this was the wedding of the century. It really was. She's a fairy tale princess marrying her, the heir to the throne and Prince Charles, as it was. And the streets were heaving, absolutely heaving. And here she is in the famous white dress with a miles long train. And here he is in Prince Charles in his military regalia. As you can imagine for the photographer, there's hundreds of photographers all wanting the right photos. Must have been clamouring for it. Absolutely.

And he got there really, really early. So it was a very, very long day. And this is what photographers live for, the shot. And getting the right height and making sure that they're in focus and everything. But then when they left, he had to get to Buckingham Palace pretty quickly. You know, can you imagine the throngs, the crowd, you know, how to get. So he ran, literally ran to Buckingham Palace. And he was amongst the thousands of other people waiting for the new bride and groom to come out on the balcony.

the photo to the left here is the famous photo of them kissing on the balcony. And the story behind this was they were on the balcony for a while. And then the crowd started chanting, kiss, kiss, kiss. It'd never been done before. And this is the first time that royalty had kissed on the balcony. And the story goes that, you know, because they were on the balcony for a long time, a lot of the photographers were getting ready to go. And he hung around, waited, and then they did this and he managed to capture it.

So again, if you're looking at this photo, you wouldn't believe that this was taken several meters away amongst thousands, thousand people. It looks so intimate, looks so personal. And that's what a good photograph does. It tells a story in the most captivating way. How many people were watching this wedding? It's estimated that 750 million people across the world was watching her as she walked down those steps with her 25-foot dress. And, you know, she was only 20 years old when she got married to him and he was 32. And apparently she'd only met him 13 times. Oh, no.

This is quite a famous image of Diana in her gym gear being super cash. But what I like what this is, like you were so used to seeing images of celebrities being papped out and about today. She's got to be one of the first that actually was photographed like this. Yeah, I mean, she was a trendsetter. And yeah, this photo where she's wearing the Virgin Atlantic jumper, she actually spoke to Anwar Hussein before this and said, I want to promote an image of health consciousness.

So she asked him to take a picture of her leaving the gym. And because she knew her global appeal that by her looking like she's health conscious, that would influence other people to become health conscious. And as you rightly say, this is a princess. Yeah, in shorts, in Lycra. Exactly, with bare legs and not looking glam with the tiara and everything, which was absolutely unheard of. And she was such a style icon that people copied her.

And that jumper, you know, sold millions. And, you know, people copied her hair and her style and her sunglasses. And that carried on throughout Diana's life. You know, there's so many examples where she just was casual and, you know, and just felt that she was, again, a normal person. And she does look great. I mean, that helps, isn't it? You can't help but look at that and go great legs, Diana.

So this is the super famous iconic what has become known as the revenge dress. but it was actually designed by Christina Stambolian. And I think if memory serves, she likened this choice of dress to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. And what's very significant about this photo at this time was it was the day that Prince Charles admitted adultery. The day of. Yeah, so this is why it's called revenge,

because the evening she attended this event with an off-the-shoulder little black dress, which, again, for a princess at that time, was unheard of. So a lot of commentators said, you know, she did it in spite of Prince Charles. Because looking at that, the dress itself seems quite conservative to super modern eyes. When we're used to celebrities walking down catwalks with, well, just fabric covering the entrance points to their bodies. This looks quite elegant, but it's easier to get. This was really shocking.

And, you know, we had to keep remembering who she was. She was the mother of the throne, and she was a princess. And, you know, it was extremely daring. I mean, you would never imagine, or maybe even today you would never imagine Princess Anne or, you know, some of the other royals to wear such a daring dress. And, you know, she did it to pretty much stick two fingers up at Prince Charles. And well done. And again, hog the limelike from him because, you know, that was all over the news.

And, you know, so she was very smart when she came to getting, the attention from the press and win the hearts of the public. And I just noticed, does she have her wedding ring on her finger? It looks like it does, isn't it? Well played, Diana. Very good spot. That is, that's a super F-U to child, isn't it? So the cut of it is quite shocking, bare shoulders, knees.

Why is the colour so significant? It's very rare if it's never happened before for a member of the raw families, wear black unless somebody's died and they're in mourning. So again, it's another two fingers up at the monarchy. She is in morning. She's a clever lady. There are lots of things that people have Princess Diana for. But I think one of the things that I, you can't help but say Hats off Diana, well done,

is the work that she did to destigmatize the HIV crisis. And that's the photo we're looking at here. So tell me about this one. Yeah, this photo is of her shaking hands with an AIDS sufferer. And again, breaking protocol, breaking stigmas, defying convention, really, that she agreed, or he agreed as well, to touch each other's hands. And at that time, in 1987, people thought you could catch AIDS. They did. And just by doing this really simple gesture, destigmatized, really, that all those people's worries, said, well, do you know, if she can do it, then I can do it.

And I think for the gay community, it was huge, a huge endorsement that, you know, we're humans. And that's what she was like. You know, she was such a humanitarian, but she had such compassion and empathy for people. And photos that are next to this one of her touching people and allowing people to touch her was huge. I met Diana once. I was a tiny, tiny person. And she came through a very small market town where we lived. and everybody queued up for forever.

And I remember being there with my friend, and we were at four. And my friend just lost it and cried and cried and cried. And she actually got out of the car and came over and picked my friend up. I remember that. I'm not really understanding what was happening, but she came over and she comforted her. She was so upset that she saw this little girl crying,

that she was waving and she came out and she got out of the car. And there she is. This is Diana sat in front of the Taj Mahal, but there's something incredibly lonely about this picture. The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum to a husband built to show his endearing love to his wife. And that's why it's even more powerful because, yes, you're right. Princess Dana is sitting alone outside this monument to love. The story is that Prince Charles at the last minute was pulled into a business meeting in inverted commas.

The rumours were circulating that he was having an affair. So if you imagine how hot India is and the photographers are all waiting for her to arrive in swelchung heat. and she turned up alone and they took this photo and it's such an iconic image because of all the background behind it. Dominic, thank you so much for showing me around this exhibition.

It's been wonderful. And if people want to come and see it for themselves, how long is it went in for? We're here until the 2nd of September, 2004, at Dobside Vaults, which is just a stone's throwaway from Tower Bridge and you can buy tickets at Princessdana.com. Thank you for listening.

And thank you so much to Tessa and Dominic for joining me. And if you like what you heard, please don't forget to like with you and follow along whatever it is that you get your podcasts. If you'd like us to explore a subject or maybe you just wanted to say hello, then please email us at betwixt at history hit.com. We've got episodes on everything from ancient Greek bodies to ritual nudity, all marching your way.

This podcast was edited by Tom Delagie and produced by Stuart Beckwith, the senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again, Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex, Scandal in Society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.