We are people like everyone in this world.
[music playing]
Dwayne Johnson: You're lucky because you got another shot.
[music intensifies]
I know what my mother feels and wants.
I'm my mom's best friend.
~ Addic7ed.com ~
I've quite a special picture of the two of you,
which I thought was quite sweet. [laughs]
Prince Harry: This is the first time that the two of us
have ever spoken about her as a mother.
Believe it or not, but you and I are both in this photograph.
- Right. Okay. - [laughs] You're in the tummy.
- Oh, nice. - Yeah.
Arguably, probably,
a little bit too raw up until this point. It's still raw.
Prince William: There's not many days that go by
that I don't think of her.
Her 20th anniversary year feels like a good time
to remember, you know, all the good things about her,
and, hopefully, provide maybe a different side to her
that others haven't seen before.
Woman [narrating]: To celebrate the life and legacy
of Diana, Princess of Wales,
her sons are sharing their most intimate memories of her,
for the first time. [cooing]
William: We felt incredibly loved, Harry and I,
and I am very grateful that
that love still... still feels there.
Harry: It was that love that...
that even if she was on the other side of a room,
that you, as a son, you could feel it.
- Disappointed you had a brother instead of a sister? - [laughs] No, never.
[laughs] I thought it was quite funny...
[continues indistinctly]
Narrator: Through their mother's personal photographs
and childhood home movies,
the people who knew and loved her
reveal a Diana we've never seen before.
Earl Spencer: She was always very caring of little people,
and I suppose I was the first little person that she cared for.
[music]
Harry: Our mother was a total kid, through and through.
She really enjoyed the laughter and the fun.
She was one of the naughtiest parents.
William: She had a very cheeky sense of humor.
She'd loved the rudest cards you could imagine.
She was very jolly, and really enjoyed,
at times, making a lot of mischief.
But she always understood that there was
a real life outside of palace walls.
Elton John: Look at her face in every photograph.
There's a positive, wonderful glow.
William: I think she wanted to make a difference.
Narrator: Diana's death at the age of only 36 shocked the world.
And it shaped the lives of her two sons.
I give thanks that, I was lucky enough to be her son,
and that I got to know her for the 15 years that I did.
She set us up really well. She gave us the right tools
and has prepared us well for life in the best way she could,
not, obviously, knowing what was gonna happen.
Harry: She was our mum, she still is our mum.
You know, and of course, as her son, I would say that
she was the best mum in the world.
_
Harry: When we found these photo albums recently,
part of me never really wanted to look at them,
and part of me was waiting to find the right time
where we could sit down and look at them together.
She loved taking pictures, it's so nice.
She captured some really good, sort of, portraits of people.
You kind of get a snapshot of their personality quite quickly.
And the funny thing is, there's not that many of her,
- 'cause she's always taking the photographs. - Yeah.
And it's photos of us when we were... tiny.
Yeah, absolutely. From the start. From day one.
I think that some of the pictures here
are day one of you and day one of me. Just growing up.
It's really nice looking back at it and reminding yourselves.
And as she... When I started looking through it,
it brought back so many memories.
I brought this one out because we were dressing up,
- thinking that we're looking really cool. - Yeah. That was brilliant.
- We used to have great fun mucking around, didn't we? - Yeah.
Blimey. That's the first day at school.
- Probably one of my first days. - Your first day then, probably.
Me turning up thinking I've got my older brother at this school,
he'll be looking after me, when, in fact, you just ignored me.
[both laughing]
And then there's a photo here I thought you'd like to see.
Quite a special picture of the two of you,
which I thought was quite sweet.
[chuckles]
- Will, where was this? - This was out on holiday.
I just remember having the skinniest legs. I still do.
You're quite skinny there.
You've got some good bushy, blond eyebrows going on there as well.
And your freckled nose. Your freckles have gone quite a lot now.
You used to have such freckles.
- They come back every now and then. - They're quite funny, really.
- That is a sweet picture of her. - Happy memories, big smiling faces.
- She smothered us with love, that's for sure. - Yeah.
[music]
To myself and William, she was just the best mother ever.
[cooing]
She would just engulf you
and squeeze you as tight as possible,
and being as short as I was then,
there was no escape, you were there,
and you were there for as long as she wanted to hold you.
Even talking about it now,
I can feel the hugs that she used to give us,
and, you know, I miss... I miss that. I miss that feeling,
I miss that part of a family, I miss having that mother
to be able to give you those hugs and give you
that compassion that I think everybody needs.
William: She was extremely good at... showing her love.
She was extremely good at showing, you know, what
we meant to her, and, you know, what feelings meant,
and how important it was to feel.
Um, you know, whether she made time for us, physically,
um, cleared her diary and went out and did stuff with us,
or whether she'd sit down and talk to us about school
or stuff that was worrying us, or...
I think just that communication,
always being open, was very important.
Harry: Behind closed doors,
she was a very loving, caring mother,
and an incredibly funny person.
[music]
One thing I would love to ask her now, because
I genuinely think that she got satisfaction
out of dressing myself and William up
in the most bizarre outfits, normally matching.
It was weird shorts and, you know, like,
little sort of shiny shoes with the old clip-on.
Looking back at the photos, it just makes me laugh.
I just think, "How could you do that to us?"
And then, funny enough, we got to the age
when William would turn round and go,
"Oh, this is ridiculous. You know, I'm the older brother.
Why do I have to be dressed the same as him?"
And I'm going, "Hang on a second, if you're going to dress differently,
I'm not going to be the only royal person dressed like this.
This is just ridiculous."
So, I like to think that she had great fun in dressing us up.
I'm sure that wasn't it, um,
but I sure as hell am gonna dress my kids up the same way.
William: There's not many days that go by
that I don't think of her, you know,
sometimes sad, sometimes very positively.
You know, I have a smile every now and again when someone says
something and I think that's exactly what she would have said,
or she would have enjoyed that comment.
So they always live with you, people, you know, you lose like that,
and my mother lives with me every day.
[crowd cheering] [music]
Announcer: The House of Kings, Westminster Abbey.
For a thousand years, the cradle of royal power,
and today, the setting for a royal wedding.
Commentator: How proud their mother would have been today.
I think this really is a special moment.
Director: I guess there must be the bittersweet days.
I'm just thinking of your wedding,
and you desperately wanting her to be there
- and to share in it. - Yeah.
Do you feel somehow that she was there with you?
I did, and I... I sort of beforehand, you know,
had a lot to time to think about it.
[music]
Archbishop: I pronounce that they be man and wife together
in the name of the Father, and of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
William: When it came to the wedding,
I did really feel that she was there.
You know, there's those times when you...
you look to someone or something for strength,
and I very much felt she was there for me.
[music]
[crowd cheering] [bells ringing]
Announcer: For the first time
through the center gateway of Admiralty Arch
arrives Lady Diana.
[loud cheering]
And when we see her, perhaps like all royal brides
the veil will be thrown back
and we will see that lovely face.
Narrator: It was on the day of her wedding
that Diana first captured the world's imagination.
[cheering continues]
[fanfare playing]
Pageantry and romance were an unbeatable combination.
The press called it the wedding of the century.
[fanfare continuing]
- Archbishop: I, Diana Frances... - Diana: I, Diana Frances...
take thee Charles Philip Arthur George
- to my wedded husband... - Diana: to my wedded husband...
[cheering] [fanfare continuing]
Narrator: Diana's marriage was a joyous event
which everyone could relate to.
But it was also an utterly unique experience.
Diana was joining the most famous family in the world.
At the end of the day, she was a normal 20-year-old...
normal 20-year-old Lady Spencer...
marrying into the institution,
marrying into the royal... British royal family.
And she brought a breath of fresh air to everything that she did.
[music]
Narrator: Diana Spencer grew up in one of the grandest
aristocratic families in England.
Her father was a keen amateur cameraman.
The home movies he made
give us a precious glimpse into Diana's early life
She was always very caring of little people,
and I suppose I was the first little person that she cared for.
My mother left home when I was two or three,
and so Diana was the most significant,
I suppose, warm female presence in my life.
And, you know, we spent so much time together.
I think our parents' divorce was quite tricky for all of us.
It was very... sort of bitter
and had an impact, a big impact.
They never spoke, you know.
I do feel that the girl I grew up with
had a sort of bundle of insecurities and unhappinesses.
Because of her own
sensitivities and vulnerabilities,
she felt able to connect with people
who were going through a very tough time,
and sort of give them hope.
As she grew up, there was a massive change in Diana.
She suddenly felt more confident.
A definite blossoming.
She sort of realized that she was really funny.
I mean, her sense of humor was fantastic.
And male friends suddenly started to realize
that this little girl was growing into a very interesting
and very pretty young thing.
Narrator: Diana had a small and intimate circle of friends.
In this film, they're speaking about her for the first time.
Harry Herbert: The first time I met her, I was playing golf at Balmoral.
My dad, you know, was great friends with the queen,
and just as I was about to play my shot,
this vision of beauty appeared over the horizon,
full of laughter and energy,
and that was the first time that I met Diana, and, um...
like everyone who meets her,
she certainly had a big impact. [chuckles]
I'm sure my shot was violently hooked or sliced.
But we became great friends from that moment.
Narrator: Lady Carolyn Warren was a family friend of Diana's.
Carolyn Warren: I was about 15, 16,
and she would have been just a little bit older than me.
She was great fun,
had an amazing sense of humor,
and could light up the room.
Very, very caring.
Uh, she was always the person who,
if somebody was feeling down,
or there'd been a bust-up with a boyfriend
or whatever it was,
she was first man in to sort of, um, give a helping hand.
These are photographs, that I remember,
of Diana when she was working for my sister as a nanny.
Narrator: William van Straubenzee met Diana when she was 14.
She was shy, and she was pretty unsure of herself,
and, um, pretty naive, and quite gullible, really.
She was quite easy to tease, etcetera,
but she took it in incredibly good spirits.
But you had no inkling of what sort of person she was going to be.
You know, wandering around in jerseys covered in hippos,
and jeans, and slobbing around and...
She pinched my shirts quite often
because she thought that that was quite a...
quite a good thing to do.
Whenever you saw her alone
she would have picked up some trashy romantic novel.
You know, she was a bit of a dreamer.
There was a side to her which wished
that somebody would sweep her off her feet.
[crowd cheering]
Commentator: This was the moment they had come
from all corners of the kingdom to see.
A new princess for Wales.
Earl Spencer: I remember on the wedding day
going back to my mother's flat after the wedding and thinking,
"Well, that's done, so we'll all move on now,"
not realizing that she had just become a sort of global superstar.
She was so young and fresh
and vibrant and good-looking and unstuffy.
And this was all quite new, uh, for somebody in that position.
[cheering, whistling] [music]
Narrator: Only three months after her wedding,
Diana's life as a working royal began with a tour of Wales.
There was no training for her new role.
She was thrown into the deep end.
Accompanying her was the lady-in-waiting
who'd be by her side for the next ten years.
Anne Beckwith-Smith: That... I think for both of us...
was a baptism of fire.
It was an extraordinary experience.
It was that noise... it was the cheering,
it was the children screaming, you know.
It must have been very daunting.
Harry Herbert: What happened, I think,
was that everyone out there who didn't know Diana,
they were all having
the "9th green at Balmoral moment" that I had.
They realized this was such a natural person.
There wasn't... She wasn't trying to be anything other than herself.
Anne Beckwith-Smith: Her ability to go up to people
and put her hand out and just touch them,
it was... you know, remembering it now,
I can... it was very moving.
William: That immediate warmth was always there for whoever she met.
It didn't matter where you came from, what you did,
you know, she could talk to you.
Um, and I think she, generally, just had a real...
a real ability to connect very quickly.
[music]
Narrator: Home for Prince William and Prince Harry
is Kensington Palace, where they grew up.
It's always been a haven,
a place where their mother tried to carve out
an ordinary family life for them.
My mother cherished those moments of...
of privacy and being able to be that mother,
rather than the Princess of Wales.
She made the decision that, no matter what,
despite all of the difficulties of growing up
in that limelight and on that stage, she was going to ensure
that both of us had as normal a life as possible.
And if that means, you know, taking us for a burger
every now and then, or sneaking us into the cinema,
or driving through the country lanes
with the roof down of her old-school BMW
listening to Enya, I think it was... God, blast from the past.
♪ Sail away, sail away, sail away ♪
♪ Sail away, sail away... ♪
Harry: All of that was part of her being a mum.
♪ Sail away, sail away, sail away ♪
William: She was very informal and...
really enjoyed the laughter and the fun.
But she understood that there was a real life outside of palace walls,
and she wanted us to see it from a very young age,
and we understood some of the real problems in life
that, you know, can pass you by very easily,
particularly in this situation, if you don't go looking for it.
[music]
[indistinct chatter]
William: Can I come and sit here? Is that all right?
How are you doing? [laughter]
- What's your name? - David.
Narrator: A homeless shelter isn't where you'd imagine
a member of the royal family might hang out.
But The Passage, London's biggest homeless center,
is a place where Prince William feels very much at home.
Man: How's George?
- Very well. He's growing fast. - Is he? Yes, yes.
His tummy and his shoulders have got so big
that we've had to, like, quickly re-tailor his outfits.
He's growing at a rate of knots.
He's going to be... He's going to be quite a big boy, I think,
like his father.
Narrator: Prince William has been visiting The Passage
since he was a boy.
His mother first brought him here when he was only 12.
William: I was quite nervous about that at the time.
But I just enjoyed meeting these people
who had incredible stories and who clearly
had had a very, very tough time.
My interest in homelessness
has come from that, that one encounter.
That's fantastic, Brian. Look at that!
- Yeah. - That's awesome.
Do you find the drawing and the arts sort of help?
Yeah, it helps with depression, William.
- Ah. Does it? - I suffer depression, you know,
- 'cause I lost my wife last year, you know. - I'm sorry to hear that.
The times that I've seen him, I could just picture
going to the local pub and just having a pint with him.
And he's not afraid to get his hands dirty,
which, I think, that's just like his mother. [laughing]
She was a soldier for...
for the royal family.
[music]
Narrator: Homelessness was one of the first social issues
which the Princess of Wales embraced.
She ventured into some of London's roughest neighborhoods
to discover what life was really like, out on the streets.
She woke me up. I love her. [laughs]
She said, "Oh, I see you've dressed especially for me" sort of thing.
And I just cracked a joke,
saying my Savile Row suit's in the cleaners at the moment.
[applause]
Narrator: Victor Adebowale was the chief executive of Centrepoint,
Britain's biggest homeless charity.
He worked side-by-side with Diana
to raise awareness of the plight of the homeless.
Victor Adebowale: She took it to heart,
that it was wrong that this was happening
in what was a very wealthy society.
And she talked to me about it, you know,
she felt that it was wrong,
that it was, you know, deeply immoral.
Narrator: The princess went into battle.
She made a hard-hitting speech about homelessness,
which landed her in political hot water.
I am appalled at the dangers young people face on the streets
and how vulnerable they are to exploitation.
Narrator: Coming against a backdrop of budget cuts,
her speech was seen as an attack on the government.
The princess really is a rather headstrong and willful young lady,
here charming and delightful as she is in other ways...
Victor Adebowale: The speech that she gave about youth homelessness
made its way onto the floor of the Houses of Parliament
and, you know, we were accused of
politicizing the royal family as a result, so... [chuckles]
I thought she was brave, in a quiet but resolute way.
I do. I mean, she could have dropped us at any time.
You know, too hot to handle.
This is an issue that's quite difficult. That's how the world changes.
People stand up for what they believe in.
I think it was hard for her. I think it was a real,
a real strain of the... of the public role, quite often. Um...
having to do the stuff that she was doing,
involved with the certain... the charities that she was involved with.
You know, you need respite, you need somewhere to,
you know, to go and dump it.
[music] [laughing]
William: There was always a sense of
enthusiasm and energy around her,
and a lot of warmth as well.
There was always that sort of bubbling personality
going on the whole time.
I think she lived a lot of her life, especially in private, through us.
And I think that sort of childish, fun element
really came out when she was spending time with us.
Yeah!
Our mother was a total kid through and through. [laughs]
Whenever anybody says to me, you know,
"So, she was fun... give us an example,"
all I can hear is her laugh in my head.
And that sort of crazy laugh
of where there was just pure happiness
shown on her face.
[music]
One of her mottoes to me was,
"You can be as naughty as you want, just don't get caught."
She was one of the naughtiest parents.
She would come and watch us play football
and, you know, smuggle sweets into our socks.
And, I mean, like literally walking back from a football match
and having sort of five packets of Starburst,
and just the whole shirt was just bulging with sweets.
And then it's sort of looking around,
open the tuck box, throw it all in, lock it up.
William: She was a massive card writer.
She loved the rudest cards you could imagine.
And I would be at school and I'd get a card from my mother.
Usually she found something, you know, very embarrassing,
you know, a very funny card,
and then sort of wrote very nice stuff inside.
But I dared not open it in case the teachers
or anyone else in the class had seen it.
[pop music playing]
There's a couple of memories I have that are particularly funny.
Just outside this room where we are now, um,
she organized, when I came home from school,
to have Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, and Naomi Campbell,
waiting at the top of the stairs.
I was probably a 12- or 13-year-old boy,
who had posters of them on his wall.
And I went bright red
and didn't quite know what to say, and sort of fumbled,
and I think I pretty much fell down the stairs on the way up.
I was completely and utterly sort of awestruck.
That was a very funny memory that's lived with me forever
about her loving and embarrassing,
and sort of being... being this sort of joker.
Narrator: A sense of humor was a vital release for Diana,
as she began to embrace some of the most
controversial issues of the day.
Commercial Announcer: There is now a danger
that has become a threat to us all.
Narrator: By the 1980s,
the world was in the grip of a terrible epidemic.
The gay community had been devastated by AIDS.
But tabloid newspapers ignored their suffering,
and instead accused them of spreading the disease.
Their headlines stirred up a storm of prejudice.
As a young gay man,
Ian Walker endured years of discrimination.
Ian Walker: People were terrified of catching HIV.
And a lot of people would talk about the day
that they were diagnosed as the day that people stopped touching them.
That from then on, it was rubber gloves and masks and gowns.
You heard stories of people going to the dentist
and people were, like, dressed up in a space suit to deal with them.
Narrator: At a time when the fear of physical contact
with AIDS sufferers was at its height,
the princess visited the Middlesex Hospital.
It housed the only AIDS unit in the UK.
Anne Beckwith-Smith: She just walked into that room,
and there was a gentleman...
and did what she would normally do
to anybody else she was meeting.
She just shook him by the hand.
And that picture went viral, um, 'round the world.
Ian Walker: That was very powerful,
that she made that contact.
She just smashed all that fear down
by that one... that one handshake.
Narrator: The London Lighthouse
was at the heart of the AIDS epidemic in Britain.
It provided care for the sick and the dying.
Ian Walker: I was an occupational therapist at the London Lighthouse,
and the deaths were just relentless.
You'd go home at night...
and you weren't sure who was gonna be there the next day.
Narrator: The princess became The London Lighthouse's
greatest champion, publicly supporting the charity,
but also regularly visiting patients, often on her own time.
Gerard McGrath: When she came in, it was like she was shining.
That smile... it just beamed.
When she smiled, she beamed.
Um... I sound like a sycophant, but you know, that's how it was.
Um, and, uh...
And I'm not a royal person, really,
I'm a Republican, but, um,
she was an exception.
- Gerard: How are you? - Ian: How are you? Good to see you.
Hello. How are you? Nice to see you.
Narrator: Sir Elton John was a friend of Diana's,
and like her, a committed AIDS activist.
- Would she come here unannounced? - Yeah, yeah.
Narrator: Prince Harry is joining him at the London Lighthouse
to hear more about his mother's work.
It was considered to be a gay disease,
and for someone who was within the royal family
and who was a woman, and who was straight...
and to have someone care from the other side
was an incredible gift.
- You can see it in the photographs. - Exactly.
When you look back to these days,
when actually the reality was doom and gloom...
- Absolutely. And look at all... - The reality then was doom and gloom,
yet everybody in that photograph is smiling.
- Because of her. - Yes, because of her.
- She had an energy... - Look at her face, in every photograph,
there's a positive, wonderful glow.
Also she had this incredible ability,
which he's kind of inherited and I told him that,
and he said, "Thanks very much,"
to make people feel at ease
and make them feel that everything's gonna be all right.
I haven't experienced many people in my life who have that ability.
but she could walk into a room of people
and make them feel as if everything was great.
[music]
Narrator: It's World AIDS Day and Prince Harry is in Barbados.
He is encouraging people to take a blood test.
It's the best way to stop the spread of AIDS.
All right. I'll just take a little bit more from you.
- Don't take it all. - No, I'm not gonna take all.
Narrator: Prince Harry has brought along a friend to help spread the word.
She's one of the most famous women on the planet.
Welcome, Rihanna.
- Thanks for taking part. - Of course. My pleasure.
Harry: There was an opportunity there to get Rihanna,
who has got, you know,
over 60 million followers on Instagram alone.
And to be able to get someone in her position,
who has lost quite a few friends to AIDS,
- I think is... it's fantastic. - You really made this...
- You made it feel like it... - It's a pinprick.
...seem like it hurt.
Rihanna: I just think it's incredible, what he's doing
to bring awareness to HIV and AIDS,
and I think the most important thing is
to kind of dilute the stigma, um, as much as possible.
Um, I think that's that thing that's crippling the most.
Harry: My mother was a role model.
She was someone who, at an incredibly young age,
would put her passion behind something
that she genuinely believed in. And I think that's fantastic.
You know, good for her. And... And thank God for her.
[music]
Jayne Fincher: I'd worked with Charles and Diana
for many, many years, photographing them.
You know, when you work with them all those years
and you watch every little thing that goes on,
you know, you become part of it all.
You can't help but feel affection towards them,
and, you know, you want them to be happy.
The newspapers had been writing a lot of stories,
negative stories about the marriage, and personally,
I tried to ignore it because I didn't want to read them
and I didn't want to believe it. So I poo-pooed it a bit.
The penny didn't really drop for me until we went to Korea.
She looked wretched, he looked wretched,
and I thought finally, "Hmm, something's going on here."
I's very evident when you look at the pictures
that they look very distanced from each other,
even to the point where, they're walking down a staircase.
They're both walking down a separate set of stairs,
and there's a wall in the middle,
and it kind of sums up what was going on at that point.
It wasn't a very happy tour.
Harry Herbert: That was a bad time for Diana.
You know, a bit the light had gone out, if you like.
[music]
Narrator: One person who was deeply concerned
was the princess's mother-in-law.
Harry Herbert: I had a talk to the queen about it up at Balmoral.
The queen would talk to me about it because...
she was so worried. She was so... so...
you know, worried about... worried about Diana.
After a lunch at Balmoral
and going up high and looking down onto this
beautiful setting of heather and castle...
an incredibly, you know, important chat,
a very personal, personal chat.
And the queen wanted to know how was Diana feeling,
and was it as bad as it was.
And it was a sad discussion,
a sad... a sad, you know, a sad moment, really,
because that was everything at its worst.
I remember going to see Diana in Kensington Palace
when... when things weren't particularly easy
in, you know, her married life.
She was, you know, very emotional.
Suddenly, these two boys
came thundering around the corner
in their dressing gowns... this was before bed...
[laughs] and just... watching her face light up.
Going from sad chat,
to, suddenly, "boof"... you know.
I'll never forget that moment, and them, you know,
crawling all over her and things flying everywhere.
Through all the difficulty of other stuff at that time...
you could see the most important thing in her life
were her boys.
[bell tolls]
John Major: It is announced from Buckingham Palace
that, with regret, the Prince and Princess of Wales
have decided to separate.
Their Royal Highnesses have no plans...
Then there was the point of where our parents split, and we were...
and the two of us were bouncing between the two of them,
and we never saw our mother enough,
or we never saw our father enough.
You know, there was a lot of... a lot of traveling.
And a lot of... a lot of, you know,
fights in the backseat with my brother, of which I would win.
So, it was... There was all of that to contend with, and I don't
pretend that we're the only people to have to deal with that.
But, um, it was... it was an interesting way of growing up.
[music]
Narrator: Privacy had been hard to come by
as a member of the royal family.
But following her separation,
media obsession with the princess reached fever pitch.
Jayne Fincher: I remember one particular trip.
We were in Lech in Austria,
and the deal was that the Palace would arrange for us
to have a photo-call on the first day.
And the understanding was that then,
"Okay, let them then ski off and have a lovely holiday."
On this particular day, we'd had our photo-call, so, you know,
you shouldn't have been out with your camera anymore.
And Diana came out with the boys
and they tried going through the town to the sweetshop.
And the photographers were just, like, running everywhere.
It was like rats running everywhere.
[shouting]
They all wanted to be in their face,
right up to them, pushing and shoving.
They were fighting with each other,
photographers were falling over,
and the boys were frightened.
And I was in the shop when she came into the shop.
It was like, she was sort of exasperated by it.
"What are they doing? Why are they doing this?"
You know, "I've kept my part of the deal, we did our photo-call.
Why are they all doing this?"
And she said, "I don't want the boys upset like this."
Excuse me.
As a parent, could I ask you to respect my children's space?
Because I've brought the children out here for a holiday...
Photographer: Right.
Diana: ...and we'd really appreciate the space.
- And I'm sure as a... - Would it be possible
- to just get a picture of you this afternoon... - No.
- ...and I'll leave you alone. - No.
As a parent, I want to protect the children.
William: Back then, 20 years ago,
people would be utterly appalled
if they knew exactly what went on.
Por favor?
William: I think it was an industry that lost its way quite heavily,
lost its sense of decency, lost its perspective
on what was appropriate.
[camera shutters clicking] Photographer: Madam.
Photographer 2: Please.
Madam!
- Please. I want to take... - No. Back up.
William: If you are the Princess of Wales and you're a mother,
I don't believe being chased by 30 guys on motorbikes
who block your path,
who spit at you, who shout at you,
and who react really badly to get a reaction from you,
um, and make a woman cry in public to get the photographs,
I don't believe that is appropriate.
I sadly remember, most of the time that she ever cried
about anything was to do with press intrusion.
- Diana: Out! Out! - Man: Out! Out! Out!
- No. Out! - Out! O-U-T, out!
Photographer: Have a nice trip, guys.
William: Harry and I, you know, we lived through that.
And one lesson I've learnt, is you never let them in too far,
because it's very difficult to get them back out again.
And you've got to maintain a barrier and a boundary,
because if you cross it, if both sides cross it,
um, a lot of pain and problems can come from it.
[music]
Narrator: In August, 1996, after 15 years of marriage,
the Prince and Princess of Wales divorced.
Diana was free to shape a new life for herself.
[crowd cheering] [whistling]
Anne Beckwith-Smith: Once the divorce had come through,
the few times I saw her,
she seemed to be at a better place.
Um, I think she was happier.
[music]
Once she was no longer a member of the royal family,
she, I think, just felt a sense of freedom.
[applause]
She was a very, very attractive woman.
And she really loved looking good.
[camera shutters clicking]
[press shouting]
She was free as a bird, and I think she looked rather amazing.
[music]
William: My mother loved her fashion, she loved her clothes,
but she wasn't a slave to it.
I remember walking around her cupboards,
and there were just so many dresses and so many clothes,
and she got so fed up with all these clothes in her cupboards,
believe it or not.
And I said, "Why don't you give these clothes away?
Why don't you do something charitable with it?"
Auctioneer: How much for this?
Nineteen thousand here.
Against you in the gallery at 19,000, the bid's here.
Narrator: Diana auctioned off dozens of her dresses...
Auctioneer: Twenty-five thousand.
Narrator: ...raising millions of dollars for AIDS and cancer charities.
Auctioneer: Hundred thirty-thousand. One seventy-five.
[whispers]
I knew she was going to say that! Two hundred thousand!
[applause]
William: And I remember her showing me the catalog
and everything else about it and saying, "This was your idea."
And I was like, "Well, I had a good idea."
[laughs]
So, it was nice to see it come to fruition.
Narrator: The sale of her dresses
marked a new chapter in the princess's life.
From now on, she would force the press
to focus on what she did and not on what she wore.
Harry: She put her name, and put her image,
and put her passion and energy into something
that she genuinely believed in.
And she knew that by doing that,
it was going to have a ripple effect across the whole world.
[music]
Narrator: In August 1997, only three weeks before she died,
Diana arrived in Bosnia.
The country had been torn apart by a brutal civil war.
With a million land mines still lurking underground,
it was one of the most dangerous places on Earth.
Diana's guides in Bosnia
were two committed land mine activists.
Jerry White: The willingness to take such a crazy risk
on these two American, you know, legless cowboys...
We have one leg between the both of us...
who didn't have, you know, two sheckles to rub together in Bosnia.
I wouldn't have recommended that she go with us.
But she chose it.
I wasn't to tell anyone about the upcoming visit to Bosnia,
not even the embassy, not even your ambassadors,
no one would know.
Ken Rutherford: It was not an easy trip, it was rigorous.
It was in a depressing environment
in the post-conflict area of Bosnia.
And she was, morning to night, visiting survivors.
Jerry White: Most people want to get away from pain,
they can't listen to pain,
they can't be fully present in the presence of pain,
and the Princess of Wales could be there.
Narrator: While she was in Bosnia,
Diana met some of the younger victims of the conflict.
Like 12 year old Zarko,
who'd lost his leg after stepping on a land mine.
They keep me on my toes. They are quite naughty.
[speaking foreign language]
Narrator: Malic was 15 when he met Diana.
He'd also lost his leg after stepping on a land mine.
[speaking foreign language]
Narrator: Diana's Bosnian visit was part of a wider campaign.
Behind the scenes, she was pushing for a global land mine ban.
About a month ago, I found a whole series of letters,
uh, letters that she was supposed to top and tail,
that were dated the 31st of August.
They were sitting on her desk here.
She knew exactly what needed to be done.
She was writing letters to certain people to say,
right, you know, this is what needs to happen
in order for this whole, sort of, tidal wave to change.
And it's only recently over the years
that I've actually really understood the effect
that she was having in those areas,
and on an international scale as well.
Narrator: Three months after Diana's visit to Bosnia,
an international treaty was signed outlawing land mines.
It was, perhaps, her greatest achievement.
She had the ability to literally change a mindset
of millions upon millions of people.
[music]
- [laughing] Hi, guys. - It's a leprechaun. [laughs]
You look like naughty school children.
- Hi. - Ken Rutherford. Nice to meet you.
Very nice to meet you.
Narrator: Prince Harry has invited Ken,
Jerry, Jarko and Malic to Kensington Palace
to share their memories of Diana's Bosnian visit.
So you guys, I mean, this was it, 20... 20 years ago.
- Ken Rutherford: This is a reunion. - You both still look the same.
[laughter]
"Ish."
You maybe have a little less hair.
You guys were almost the last people to see my mother.
Well, you saw my mother more recently than I did, I guess.
Was it quite strange for the two of you to have a...
to have a princess like that come and... [translating into foreign lang.]
to come and show an interest in your lives
and within Bosnia, the land mine issue?
[speaking foreign language]
She was the only light at the end of the tunnel for us.
[Zarko speaking foreign language]
Translator: I remember her sentence...
[Zarko speaking]
...before she left.
Translator: She said... you are not going to be forgotten.
- And that was important to him. - And that stuck in your head forever?
[translator speaking foreign language]
Translator: Whenever I had hard times, I remembered that sentence.
[applause]
Narrator: On the 20th anniversary of Diana's visit to Bosnia,
Prince Harry is finishing the work his mother began.
He's launching a new campaign
to destroy every remaining land mine.
The attention my mother brought to this issue wasn't about politics,
it was about people.
When my mother said goodbye to Zarko that August,
just weeks before her untimely death,
she told him he would not be forgotten.
Please, help me keep her word to Zarko and Malic,
and other people like them throughout the world,
who still need us to finish the job. Thank you.
[applause]
[music]
Narrator: During August 1997,
Prince William and Prince Harry
were enjoying summer in the Scottish Highlands.
While their mother was away, she constantly kept in touch.
William: The very last memory that I have is a phone call at Balmoral.
At the time, Harry and I were running around,
minding our own business, playing with our cousins,
and having a very good time.
As a kid, I never enjoyed speaking to my parents on the phone.
Um, and we spent far too much time speaking on the phone
rather than speaking to each other
because of just the way the situation was.
And the phone rang and off he went to go and speak
to her sort of for five minutes.
And I think Harry and I were just in a desperate rush to say goodbye,
you know, see you later, and we're going to go off,
and if I'd known now, obviously, what was going to happen,
I wouldn't have been so blasé about it and everything else.
But, um, that phone call sticks in my mind quite... quite heavily.
Director: Do you remember what she said?
I do. I do.
And then, "Harry, Harry, Mummy's on the phone."
Right, my turn... [whistles] ...off I go.
You know, pick up the phone, and it was...
and it was her speaking from Paris, and, you know, she...
I can't really necessarily remember what I said,
but all I do remember is... is probably, you know,
regretting for the rest of my life how short the phone call was.
And if I'd known that that was the last time I was going to speak
to my mother, the things I would... the things I would have said to her.
Looking back on it now, it's incredibly hard.
I have... I have to sort of deal with that for the rest of my life.
Not knowing that that was the last time
I was going to speak to my mum,
and how differently that conversation would have panned out
if I'd had even the slightest inkling that that was...
you know, that her life was going to be taken that night.
[sirens blare]
Reporter: The princess was taken to intensive care following a car crash.
Reporter 2: The press association announced with a newsflash at 4:41
that Diana, Princess of Wales, has died, according to British sources.
[music]
Victor Adebowale: The strangest thing was the thousands of people,
hundreds of thousands of people,
that spontaneously gathered in central London.
I've never seen anything like it,
and I don't expect to see anything like it.
People wanted to actually physically be near her.
[music]
And I think that was because
her humanity spoke to their humanity,
regardless of... of the difference in class,
the difference in life experience.
They saw something of themselves in her.
Harry: It was very, very strange, after her death,
you know, the... sort of the outpouring of love and emotion,
from so many people that had never even met her.
And there was William and I walking around
Kensington Palace Gardens here,
and the sea of flowers all the way from the Palace gates,
all the way back to Kensington High Street.
And I was thinking to myself,
how is it that so many people that never met this woman...
my mother... can be crying and showing more emotion
than I actually am feeling?
William: There's nothing like it in the world, there really isn't.
It's completely and utterly...
It's like an earthquake's just run through the house,
and through your life and everything.
It's just... it's... Your mind is completely split.
Um... and it took me a while to actually...
for it to sink in.
[horse hooves clomping]
Narrator: Prince William was 15 years old when his mother died.
Prince Harry was only 12.
You know, losing someone so close to you
is utterly devastating, especially at that age.
I think it sort of really... spins you out.
You don't quite know where you are,
what you're doing and what's going on.
[music]
William: The family came together, um,
and Harry and I tried to talk as best we could about it,
but being so small at that age, it's very difficult to...
to communicate or understand your feelings.
It's... It's very complicated.
[music]
Narrator: After the service in Westminster Abbey,
Diana's body was taken to her family home at Althorp.
There, on an island in the middle of Round Oval Lake,
she was laid to rest.
[music]
The first time I cried was...
was at the funeral on the island,
and that was probably, like... and only since then, maybe once.
So, there's a, you know, there's a lot of grief
that still needs to be... [whistles]... to be let out.
[music]
William: Slowly, you try and rebuild your life
and you try and understand what's happened, and...
I kept saying to myself that, you know,
my mother would not want me to be upset,
she'd not want me to be down, she'd not want me to be like this.
Um, I kept myself busy as well, which is good and bad sometimes,
but allows you to kind of get through that initial shock phase.
Um, and to the point where,
I'd say, you know, we're talking as much as maybe...
five to seven years afterwards.
[music]
Harry: I was so young, I grew up sort of thinking
that not having a mum was normal.
I think it was a classic case of,
"Don't let yourself think about your mum
and the grief and the hurt that comes with it,
because it's never gonna bring her back,
and it's only gonna make you more sad."
People deal with grief in different ways...
and my way of dealing with it was...
was by just basically shutting it out, locking it out.
The ten years that I was in the army,
I just sort of dug my head in the sand
and was just... it was just white noise.
I went through a whole period of having to try to
sort my... sort myself out.
[music]
William: My heart goes out to all the people
who have lost all their loved ones in the world.
You know, it does connect you. It's a very sad club... [chuckles]
...you don't want to be a member of.
But you do have a shared...
a shared sort of pain that you can immediately understand
and see in anyone when you meet them.
Narrator: Talking about the loss of parents or children
is one of the last great taboos.
But poignantly, in the years before she died,
Diana became one of the first public figures
to engage with these issues when one of her best friends
launched a bereavement charity.
Julia Samuel: When Child Bereavement UK was founded,
Diana, as an act of friendship,
she did many things that really supported me, personally.
[applause]
Julia Samuel: Good afternoon.
I hadn't made many speeches, and I was really nervous,
and so she helped me with my speech.
The Child Bereavement Trust
will address problems that affect many people's lives.
Julia Samuel: And she came to our launch, and of course
it meant that we were in every newspaper, on the news.
And it gave us the best possible launch we could ever have had.
She had a very natural gift of empathy.
Just by looking at someone, she'd have an idea of what they were feeling.
And actually I see that with the Duke of Cambridge.
- Hello. - Hello.
He has a depth of understanding through his own experience
that connects with other people.
Narrator: Prince William has continued
his mother's relationship with the charity,
becoming Patron of Child Bereavement UK.
I strongly believe that everyone wants to help, they just don't know how to.
And they usually end up, pretty much just stumbling a bit,
- and then just stay quiet, - Yeas.
- which is sometimes the worst thing you can do. - Woman: Oh, yeah.
I was pregnant with our second daughter,
um, and I went to a routine 38-week antenatal appointment,
and, um, and they found no heartbeat.
- Um... gosh, sorry. Already. Oh, no. - Don't worry.
Narrator: Emily's baby, Abbie, was stillborn.
John's daughter, Rosie, died when she was 19.
At the moment we're talking about
what do we do with Rosie's ashes. We've still got those.
It's hard to totally let go, as well, isn't it?
It's very hard to let go.
I always think that how you come out of bereavement,
how you come out of grief, it's a real defining moment.
- It doesn't go away, it never goes away. - No, no, no.
- But you learn to deal with it. - You make it part of your life
- in a way that's right and good - Yeah.
- and in the best way that you can. - Absolutely.
Woman: John and Emily, thank you so much.
- Thank you. - It's really, really appreciated.
And it's so brave to be... for you two to be
- as open and as articulate as you are. - Thank you.
- Keep the memories alive. That's the thing, isn't it? - John: Keep the memories alive.
- Emily: Yeah. - John: Mm.
[music]
Narrator: On the 20th anniversary of Diana's death,
a special garden has been created at Kensington Palace
to celebrate her life and legacy.
Graham Dillamore was a young gardener
when he began working for Diana.
We're all very lucky to know her,
work with her, and be here at that time.
For me, personally,
this is, uh, where I'll always remember her.
We were looking at images of Diana
and the whites and creams and those pastel shades
seemed to sort of, jump out at us a bit on the page,
and we thought we could
maybe develop a scheme that could... that could capture that,
and would look really, really nice.
And they got taller than I thought...
Graham Dillamore: You can see, we've got the foxgloves
coming into flower now, which are wonderful.
And we're planting these gorgeous white lilies.
And then we've got these super,
fantastic, kind of creamy roses.
Seeing the two boys when they were little,
in the private garden, throwing a rugby ball around
or kicking a football into the roses, it was great to see.
And it reminded me of my own garden at home with my kids.
I'll always look back on those days
with really great, happy memories.
Harry Herbert: When you see the boys, funny enough,
for me, that brings her back.
It makes me smile when you turn on the telly and...
see that Harry's been a bit wicked doing something.
That's great, because that's Diana.
And you see, you know, you see William's smile,
or you see the way that they react to... to people.
And... that's their mother.
[music]
William van Straubenzee: People used to say to me,
"Were you ever in love with Diana?"
And my answer is, "Of course I was in love with Diana."
Everybody in the world was in love with Diana.
I mean, every person, of every age group
of any sex or denomination or anything that knew of her,
was in love with her.
She was just an extraordinary person.
[music]
[chatter, applause]
Narrator: In the years since Diana died,
two of her grandchildren have been born.
Director: How do you keep her memory alive for your children?
I think constantly talking about "Granny Diana."
[laughs]
Um, so, we've got more photos up around the house now of her,
and we talk about her a bit, and stuff.
It's hard because, obviously, Katherine didn't know her,
so she cannot really provide that... that level of detail.
So I do, regularly,
putting George or Charlotte to bed, talk about her,
and just try and remind them that, um,
there are two grandmothers...
there were two grandmothers... in their lives,
and so it's important that they know who she was
and that she existed.
She'd be a nightmare grandmother, absolute nightmare.
She'd love the children to bits, but she'd be an absolute nightmare.
She'd come and go and she'd come in probably at bath time,
cause an amazing amount of scene,
bubbles everywhere, bathwater all over the place,
and, um, and then leave.
[music]
I want to make as much time and effort
with Charlotte and George as I can,
because I realize that these early years, particularly,
are crucial for children,
um, having seen, you know, what she did for us.
[music]
I find these ones actually quite sweet.
Believe it or not, you and I are both in this photograph.
Right. [laughs]
- You're in the tummy. - Oh, nice.
Yeah, exactly. She wrote on it, she said "W, Harry."
That's quite funny.
You, I mean, you potentially look excited that you've got a,
at that point, a brother or sister coming.
I think I as looking forward to beating you up the moment you arrived.
[laughs] I thought it was quite a funny photograph.
- She looks happy there, as well. - Yeah.
William: Time we spent with her.
The feeling of having her around
and being loved as a family, or as a son, I think
those are the most precious and special memories, to me.
Harry: It has been hard and it will continue to be hard.
There's not a day that William and I don't wish that she was...
we don't wish that she was still around.
And we wonder what kind of a mother she would be now,
and what kind of a public role she would have,
and what a difference she would be making.
William: I think she would be proud that Harry and I
have managed to come through everything that's happened,
having lost her.
And that gives me positivity and strength
to know that I can face anything the world can throw at me.
We felt, you know, incredibly loved, Harry and I,
um, and... I'm very grateful that that
love still... still feels there, even 20 years on.
And I think that's a huge credit to her, that I...
I can... I can still feel that now.
[music]
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