At first there was no grand plan, it was simply a case of choosing who was around or who had been recommended by her new friends from Vogue. She picked two young designers, David and Elizabeth Emanuel, to make the wedding dress because she had been impressed by their work when she attended a photo shoot at Lord Snowdon’s Kensington studio. They also made the evening gown for her first official engagement, a charity gala in the City of London, which created almost as big a sensation as the dress which graced St Paul’s Cathedral a few months later.
The black taffeta silk ballgown was strapless and backless with a plunging, gravity-defying décolletage. Prince Charles was not impressed with the outfit. While she thought black was the smartest colour a girl her age could wear, he had different ideas. When she appeared in her finery at the door of his study he commented unfavourably saying that only people in mourning wore black. Diana replied that she was not yet a member of his family and, what’s more, she had no other dress suitable for the occasion.
That spat did little for her confidence as she faced a battery of cameras waiting outside Goldsmiths Hall. She was unschooled in the niceties of royal behaviour and felt absolutely terrified that she would embarrass her fiancé in some way. ‘It was a horrendous occasion,’ she told her friends. During the course of the evening she met Princess Grace of Monaco, a woman she had always admired from afar.
She noticed Diana’s uncertainty and, ignoring the other guests who were still buzzing over Diana’s choice of dress, whisked her off to the powder room. Diana poured her heart out about the publicity, her sense of isolation and fears about what the future held in store. ‘Don’t worry,’ Princess Grace joked. ‘It will get a lot worse.’
At the end of that momentous month of March, Prince Charles flew to Australia for a five-week visit. Before he climbed the gangway of the RAF VC10 he grasped her arm and kissed her on each cheek. As she watched his aeroplane taxi away, she broke down and wept. This vulnerability further endeared her to the public. However, her tears were not what they seemed. Before he had left for the airport, he had attended to a few last-minute details in his study at Buckingham Palace. Diana was chatting to him when the telephone rang. It was Camilla. Diana wondered whether to sit there or leave and let them make their farewells in private. She left her fiancé alone but told friends afterwards that the episode broke her heart.
She was now alone in the ivory tower. For a girl used to the noise and chaos of an all-girls apartment, Buckingham Palace felt like anywhere but home. Diana found it a place of ‘dead energy’ and grew to despise the smooth evasions and subtle equivocations employed by courtiers, particularly when she asked them directly about her fiancé’s relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles. Lonely and feeling sorry for herself, she regularly wandered from her second-floor apartment to the kitchens to chat to the staff. On one famous occasion Diana, barefoot and casually dressed in jeans, buttered toast for an astonished footman.
She found some solace in her love of dancing, inviting the West Heath School pianist, Lily Snipp, and Wendy Mitchell, her dance teacher, to Buckingham Palace to give her private lessons. For 40 minutes Diana, dressed in a black leotard, went through a routine that combined ballet with tap dancing.
During those momentous days Miss Snipp kept a diary which gives a first-hand feeling of the misgivings felt by Lady Diana Spencer as the wedding day approached. The first entry in Miss Snipp’s diary, on Friday 5 June 1981, recorded details of Diana’s first lesson. She wrote: ‘To Buckingham Palace to play for Lady Diana. We all worked hard at the lesson, no time wasted. When the lesson was over Lady Diana, with her tongue in her cheek, said: “I suppose Miss Snipp will now go direct to Fleet Street.” She has a good sense of humour – she will need it in the years to come.’
The most poignant lesson, which proved to be the last, was held a few days before the wedding. Diana’s thoughts were on the profound changes ahead. Miss Snipp noted: ‘Lady Diana rather tired – too many late nights. I delivered silver salt-cellars – present from West Heath School – very beautiful and much admired. Lady Diana counting how many days of freedom are left to her. Rather sad. Masses of people outside of Palace. We hope to resume lessons in October. Lady Diana said: “In 12 days’ time I shall no longer be me.”’
Even as she spoke those words Diana must have known that she had left behind her bachelor persona as soon as she had entered the Palace portals. In the weeks following the engagement she had grown in confidence and self-assurance, her sense of humour frequently bubbling to the surface. Lucinda Craig Harvey saw her former cleaning lady on several occasions during her engagement, once at the 30th birthday party of her brother-in-law, Neil McCorquodale. ‘She had a distance to her and everyone was in awe of her,’ she recalled. It was a quality also noticed by James Gilbey. ‘She has always been seen as a typical Sloane Ranger. That’s not true. She was always removed, always had a determination about her and was very matter-of-fact, almost dogmatic. That quality has now developed into a tremendous presence.’
While she was in awe of Prince Charles, deferring to his every decision, she didn’t appear to be overcome by her surroundings. Inwardly she may have been nervous, outwardly she appeared calm, relaxed and ready to have fun. At Prince Andrew’s 21st-birthday party, which was held at Windsor Castle, she was at her ease among friends. When her future brother-in-law asked where he could find the Duchess of Westminster, the wife of Britain’s richest aristocrat, she joked: ‘Oh Andrew, do stop name dropping.’ Her ready repartee, cutting but not vicious, was reminiscent of her eldest sister Sarah when she was the queen bee of the Society circuit.
‘Don’t look so serious, it’s not working,’ joked Diana as she introduced Adam Russell to the Queen, Prince Charles and other members of the royal family in the receiving line at the ball held at Buckingham Palace two days before her wedding. Once again she seemed good humoured and relaxed in her grand surroundings. There wasn’t the slightest sign that a few hours earlier she had collapsed in paroxysms of tears and seriously considered calling the whole thing off.
The cause of the tears was the arrival, a few days earlier, of a parcel at the busy Buckingham Palace office which she shared with Michael Colbourne, who was then in charge of the Prince’s finances, and several others. Diana insisted on opening it, despite firm remonstrations from the Prince’s right-hand man. Inside was a gold chain bracelet with a blue enamel disc and the initials ‘F’ and ‘G’ entwined. The initials stand for ‘Fred’ and ‘Gladys’, the nicknames used by Camilla and Charles which Diana had been made aware of by friends. It had come home to her earlier when she discovered that the Prince had sent a bouquet of flowers to Camilla when she had been ill. Once again he had used that nickname.
Work in the Prince’s office at Buckingham Palace came to a halt when Diana confronted her husband-to-be about his proposed gift. In spite of her angry and tearful protests Charles insisted on giving the token to the woman who had haunted their courtship and who subsequently cast a long shadow across their married life. The full enormity of the charade hit her two days before the wedding when she attended a rehearsal at St Paul’s Cathedral. As soon as the camera lights were switched on, it triggered the churning emotions in her heart and she broke down and wept inconsolably.
The public glimpsed her frustration and desperation the weekend before the wedding when she left a polo field at Tidworth in floods of tears. By then, though, the television cameras were in place for the wedding, the cake had been baked, the crowds were already gathering on the pavement and the sense of happy anticipation was almost palpable. On the Monday before her wedding day, Diana gave serious consideration to calling a halt to the whole affair. At lunchtime she knew that Prince Charles had gone to present Camilla with her gift, even leaving behind his senior bodyguard, Chief Inspector John McLean.
At the time he was seeing Camilla, Diana had lunch with her sisters at Buckingham Palace and discussed her predicament with them. She was confused, upset and bewildered by the train of events. At
that moment, as she seriously considered calling off the wedding, they made light of her fears and premonitions of the disaster which lay ahead. ‘Bad luck, Duch,’ they said, using the family nickname for their younger sister, ‘your face is on the tea-towels so you’re too late to chicken out.’
Her head and heart were in turmoil but no one would have guessed it when later that evening she and Charles entertained 800 of their friends and family at a ball inside Buckingham Palace. It was a memorable night of riotous jollity. Princess Margaret attached a balloon to her tiara, Prince Andrew tied another to the tails of his dinner jacket while royal bar staff dispensed a cocktail called ‘A Long Slow Comfortable Screw up against the Throne’. Rory Scott recalled dancing with Diana in front of the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and embarrassing himself by continually standing on Diana’s toes.
The comedian Spike Milligan held forth about God, Diana gave a priceless diamond and pearl necklace to a friend to look after while she danced; while the Queen was observed looking through the programme and saying in bemused tones: ‘It says here they have live music’, as though it had just been invented. Diana’s brother, Charles, just down from Eton, vividly remembered bowing to one of the waiters. ‘He was absolutely weighed down with medals,’ he recalled, ‘and by that stage, with so many royal people there, I was in automatic bowing mode. I bowed and he looked surprised. Then he asked me if I wanted a drink.’
For most of the guests the evening passed in a haze of euphoria. ‘It was an intoxicatingly happy atmosphere,’ recalled Adam Russell. ‘Everyone horribly drunk and then catching taxis in the early hours, it was a blur, a glorious, happy blur.’
On the eve of the wedding, which Diana spent at Clarence House, her mood was much improved when Charles sent her a signet ring engraved with the Prince of Wales's feathers and an affectionate card which said: ‘I’m so proud of you and when you come up I’ll be there at the altar for you tomorrow. Just look ’em in the eye and knock ’em dead.’
While his loving note helped to soothe her misgivings, it was difficult to control the inner turmoil which had been building up over the months. During dinner that evening with her sister Jane, she ate everything she could and then was promptly sick. The stress and tension of the occasion were partly to blame but the incident was also an early symptom of bulimia nervosa, the condition which took pernicious hold later that year. She later said: ‘The night before the wedding I was very, very calm, deathly calm. I felt I was a lamb to the slaughter. I knew it and I couldn’t do anything about it.’
She woke early on the morning of 29 July 1981, which was not surprising as her room overlooked the Mall where the singing, chattering crowds had been gathering for days. It was the start of what she later described as ‘the most emotionally confusing day of my life’. Listening to the crowds outside, she felt a deathly composure combined with great anticipation at the event which lay ahead.
Her hairdresser Kevin Shanley, make-up artist Barbara Daly and David and Elizabeth Emanuel were on hand to ensure that the bride looked her best. They succeeded. Her brother, Charles, remembers his sister’s transformation. ‘She was never one for make-up but she did look fantastic. It was the first time in my life I ever thought of Diana as beautiful. She really did look stunning that day and very composed, not showing any nerves although she was slightly pale. She was happy and calm.’
Her father, who gave her away, was thrilled. ‘Darling, I’m so proud of you,’ he said as she walked down the staircase at Clarence House. As she climbed into the Glass Coach with her father, Diana had several practical considerations to overcome. Her dressmakers realized too late that they had not taken the size of the coach into consideration when they had designed the ivory silk wedding gown with its 25-foot-long train. In spite of all Diana’s efforts it was badly crushed in the short journey to St Paul’s.
She also knew that it was her priority to get her father, physically impaired since his stroke, down the long aisle. ‘It was a deeply moving moment for us when he made it,’ observed Charles Spencer. Earl Spencer loved the carriage ride, waving enthusiastically to the crowds. As they reached St Martin-in-the-Fields church the cheering was so loud he thought that they had arrived at St Paul’s and prepared to get out of the carriage.
When they finally arrived at the cathedral, the world held its collective breath and Diana, with her father leaning heavily on her arm, walked with painful slowness down the aisle. Diana had plenty of time to spot the guests, who included Camilla Parker Bowles. As she walked down the aisle her heart brimmed over with love and adoration for Charles. When she looked at him through her veil her fears vanished and she thought that she was the luckiest girl in the world. She had such hope for the future, such belief that he would love, nurture and protect her from the difficulties that lay ahead. That moment was watched by 750 million people gathered around television sets in more than 70 countries. It was, in the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, ‘the stuff of which fairytales are made’.
But for the moment she had to concentrate on dipping a formal curtsy to the Queen, a consideration which had greatly exercised her mind in the previous few days. When the newly created Princess of Wales emerged from St Paul’s Cathedral to the cheers of the crowd, hope and happiness brimmed in her heart. She convinced herself that the bulimia, which had scarred her engagement, was simply an attack of pre-wedding nerves and that Mrs Parker Bowles was consigned to history. She later spoke of those hours of heady emotion in a voice of wry amusement: ‘I had tremendous hopes in my heart.’
She was proved bitterly wrong. In Diana’s mind this unworkable triangle engendered a decade of angst, anguish and anger. There were no winners. As Diana pithily observed in a memorable line: ‘There were three of us in this marriage so it was a bit crowded.’ A friend of both of them, who watched this unhappy saga unfold over the following decade, conceded: ‘I am sorry for the tragedy of it all. My heart bleeds for the whole misunderstanding but it bleeds most for Diana.’
But on that July day, Diana basked in the warm affection of the crowds who lined the route back to Buckingham Palace where the royal family and their guests enjoyed the traditional royal wedding breakfast. By then she was simply too weary to think clearly, feeling totally overwhelmed by the spontaneous display of affection from the patriotic crowd.
She was longing for some peace and privacy, believing that now the wedding was over she would slip back into relative obscurity. The royal couple found that seclusion at Broadlands, Earl Mountbatten’s home in Hampshire, where they spent the first three days of their honeymoon, followed by a leisurely Mediterranean cruise on board the royal yacht Britannia which they joined at Gibraltar. Prince Charles had his own ideas about married life. He brought along his fishing tackle which he used at their Hampshire retreat, together with half a dozen books by his friend and mentor, the South African philosopher and adventurer Sir Laurens van der Post. It was his idea that they should read his books together and then discuss van der Post’s mystical ideas at mealtimes.
Diana, on the other hand, wanted to spend time really getting to know her husband. For much of their engagement his royal duties had taken him away from her side. On board the royal yacht, with its 21 officers and 256 men, they were never left alone. Evening meals were black-tie affairs attended by selected officers. While they discussed the day’s events, a Royal Marine band played in an adjoining room. The nervous tension of the build-up to the wedding had left the royal couple absolutely drained. For much of the time they slept and when she wasn’t sleeping Diana frequently visited the kitchens, the domain of ‘Swampie’ Marsh and fellow chefs. They were amused by the way she consumed endless bowls of ice cream or asked them to make her special snacks in between the normal meals.
Over the years royal staff and her friends were puzzled by Diana’s appetite, particularly as she always appeared to be so slim. She was frequently found raiding the refrigerator at Highgrove late in the evening, and once startled a footman by eating an entire steak a
nd kidney pie when she was staying at Windsor Castle. Her friend Rory Scott remembers her eating a 1lb bag of sweets in short order during a bridge evening while her admission that she ate a bowl of custard before she went to bed added to the perplexity concerning her diet.
In fact, virtually from the moment she became the Princess of Wales, Diana suffered from bulimia, a fact which helped to explain her erratic dietary behaviour. As Carolyn Bartholomew, who was instrumental in convincing Diana to seek medical help, observed: ‘It’s been there through her royal career, without a doubt. I hate to say it but I feel that it may erupt when she feels under pressure.’ For Diana, the last few months had been an emotional rollercoaster as she had tried to come to terms with her new life as a public figure and the suffocating publicity as well as her husband’s ambiguous behaviour towards her. It was an explosive cocktail and it took just one spark to bring on her condition. The week after they became engaged, according to Diana, Charles put his arm around her waist and commented on what he considered to be her chubby figure. It was an innocent enough remark but it triggered something inside her. Shortly afterwards she made herself sick. It was a profound release of tension and in some hazy way gave her a sense of control over herself and a means of releasing the anger she felt.
Their honeymoon gave no respite. In fact it became much worse as Diana would make herself sick four, sometimes five times a day. The ever-present shadow cast by Camilla merely served to throw fuel on the flames. Reminders were everywhere. On one occasion they were comparing engagements in their respective diaries when two photographs of Camilla fell out from the pages of Charles’s diary. Amid the tears and the angry words, she pleaded with him to be honest about how he felt about her and Camilla. Those words fell on deaf ears. Several days later they entertained the Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, and his wife Jihan on board the royal yacht. When Charles appeared for dinner, Diana noticed that he was sporting a new pair of cufflinks in the shape of two ‘C’s entwined. He admitted that they were from Camilla but passed them off as a simple gesture of friendship. Diana didn’t see it that way. As she commented angrily to friends later, she could not see why Charles needed these constant reminders of Camilla.
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