Diana - a journey through her life

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Summary
Diana Spencer was born in 1961.Her parents divorced when she was about 5 years old. She and her little brother lived with their father. Nine years later she moved in to the Spencer family house and became Lady Diana. When she was 20 years old she married Prince Charles and was now Princess of Wales. She was very popular and everybody loved her, except from the royal family
Diana and Harry got two sons, William (the heir of the throne) and Harry.
Diana devoted her life to charity. She felt compassion for people and was called The People’s Princess. Diana was a suicidal and had bulimia. She also suffered depression.
Diana and Charles divorced after his affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. A year after the divorce Diana died a tragic death in a car accident. The world mourned her.

1. Introduction
Diana is a name that many people associate with good deeds and a tragic death. But that’s it for most of the youths in Sweden. Everybody in my age knows who she was, but not what she did or why she was sp loved by the people. Therefore have I chosen to do a school essay about her life for those who don’t know much about her.
2. Diana’s childhood

Diana Francis Spencer was born 1 July 1961.
Her parents, Edward John Spencer and Frances Roche wanted a son as an heir. Therefore, Diana’s birth was a disappointment for them. They already had two daughters, Sarah and June. 1960 was John born, but he died after just a couple of hours.
Diana was baptized in Sandringhams Church and had no royal godmother or godfather, as her brother Charles got, three years later.

Diana and Charles were very close and spent a lot of time together, and after their parent’s divorce in 1967 it was Diana who toke care of her little brother. She almost never met her mother after the divorce. Diana often felt lonely. The older sisters Sarah and Jane were away at a boarding school, and their father never had time for Diana and Charles, so he hired babysitters to look after them. Diana and Charles never liked the nannies so they kept doing a lot of mischief over and over again.

In a recorded interview (by Andrew Morton) Diana says that she and Charles felt like the nannies were a threat, because they though that they were trying to take over their mothers place. When Diana was 13 years old she walked in her mother and sisters footsteps and began to study at West Heath, a boarding school for girl. Unlike her brother, she wasn’t very good at school, but when it came to sports she was brilliant. She loved swimming and ballet. Unfortunately she grew too tall and had to give up the ballet. But even if her grades weren’t good, the teachers liked her because she was always very kind and polite. In her teens she loved to visit hospitals and often helped the old and the sick people.

3. Her new family
In 1975 Diana’s grandfather, the 7:th Earl Spencer, died and the family moved into the old Spencer family home at Althorp, in Northamptonshire. Diana’s father now became the 8:th Earl Spencer and Diana became Lady Spencer. The house never was a happy family home. Diana still felt lonely. A year after they had moved in Diana’s father met a new woman; Raine, countess of Dartmouth. The children never liked her and gave her the nickname Acid Raine.

When Diana was sixteen she met Prince Charles for the first time. The prince had a romance with Diana’s older sister Sarah, and was invited to Althorp for a bird hunt. Diana didn’t really look like a royalty back then; she didn’t bother to dress well and she never wore make-up. But she had a good sense of humor and got along very well with Prince Charles. He liked her kindness and compassion for other people.

Diana and Charles met at a few more parties and in July 1980 Charles fell for her. They were both staying with friends in the country. In the evening Diana sat next to Charles outside in the garden. She was telling him that she saw him at funeral a year earlier. “You looked so sad”, she said. “I thought; it’s wrong that you’re alone, you need someone to look after you.” 3 years later they got married.
Diana and Charles had two sons, William and Harry. William was born in 1982, and Harry two years later, 1984.
Diana was a very loving and caring mother and spent a lot of time together with her boys. Charles wanted William and Harry to study at home with a private teacher, but Diana didn’t agree. So in September 1985, William went to his first school. Diana tried to bring up her children as normal as she could, and taught them in an early age that all humans are equal.

4. The charity work
Diana loved to work with charity. She didn’t just give away money; she also took part in the work herself. It gave her the reputation as the “people’s princess”.
She touched millions throughout the world with her understanding, compassion, and commitment to reach out and help.

She travelled to different countries to comfort the sick and poor people. Especially children, she sat by their sides, talking and listening to them. Diana was a very good listener; she didn’t loose her cool and had a peaceful effect on people. Even if she ought to hear terrifying stories she kept a professional but compassioned behaviour.

When Diana opened Britain''''s first purpose-built ward for AIDS sufferers, at London''''s Middlesex Hospital, many people were shocked when they saw that she didn''''t wear any protective clothing. At that time people knew very little about AIDS. Some believed it could be caught and passed on by touching, kissing, or even hugging someone who was infected. The sight of Princess Diana, the mother of two young sons, one the heir to the throne, had taken such an enormous risk with a deadly disease shocked many people. Diana showed the public that she accepted people with AIDS and HIV, and many pictures are taken when she’s hugging or touching infected people.

Diana also took part in anti-landmines projects. In 1997 she was invited to Angola by the International Red Cross. She was supposed to create an international awareness of landmines.

5. The sad soul behind the happy smile

The public saw Diana as a smiling, warm woman with no problems to be worried about. To the world she looked happy and healthy. But inside she was lost. The first January 1982 she tried to kill herself by falling down from a staircase. The court announced to the media that it was an accident; they said that she had stumbled, but Diana admitted later that it was a suicide attempt.

After her first childbirth she suffered post-natal depression. The royal family didn’t understand her at all and Diana became more and more reserved. Her marriage was falling apart and she didn’t fit in with the royal family. The only one she could trust was (according to the book Diana) Sarah Ferguson, Charles brother’s wife. But their friendship wasn’t encouraged by the Queen because she thought that they had a bad influence on each other.

Rumors about Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles love affair were floating over the country. Camilla was Charles old friend that was about the same age as he was and had the same interests.




But even though Diana and Charles both knew that their love was over they kept going on together. And somehow Diana could handle it

But after Harry was born she got depressed again. In the book “Diana, her own story” she says that she tried to kill herself several times. Charles knew about this and treated her with despise.
She told her friend afterwards that she didn’t want to die; it was just a cry for help, which nobody heard.

But as the old saying is: Time heals all the wounds, Diana got better. One year later, after her divorce she met Dodi al Fayed and fell in love.

6. The Tragedy
Diana and her new lover Dodi Al Fayed were supposed to spend their holiday in Corsica, but the paparazzi followed them and didn’t leave them alone, so they took a plane to Paris. But the paparazzi where close behind. The chauffeur Henri Paul increased the speed and drove way too fast. They drove in to the L’Alma-tunnel followed by nine photographers in separate vehicles. Suddenly the car hit the side of the tunnel and the car hurled over the road and crashed with a column.
Dodi and the chauffeur Henri Paul died immediately and Diana and her lifeguard Trevor Rees-Jones were badly hurt. Even though the photographers saw it they kept on taking pictures of them.
An ambulance came and took Diana and Trevor to hospital. Diana was alive for about four more hours, but her injuries were too extensive. At 4 AM the doctors declared her to be dead.
The day after her sisters and ex-husband came and picked up her body.

7. The world kept spinning
A whole world mourned Diana’s death. Thousands of people put flowers outside her house. The night before the funeral the Queen se...