The Crown Real Life

My BFF Suzanne couple not believe yesterday’s blog was not about The Crown. I had to admit to her that I had not watched it as of the writing of the blog. So last night I started. I was three of the four episodes in when I finally had to go to bed, but was dying to watch the fourth episode. I did not stay up and push on because I wanted to give it my full attention and 11PM was not the right time to start.

I love how The Crown has written this part of history. Of course it is historical fiction as we will never know exactly what went on, but I do feel like they had portrayed the royal family in a fairly good light considering the facts we have in evidence.

The part of the show that I am most happy with is the portrayal of Diana’s relationship with Dodi Fayed as not some great love and how Charles appeared to grieve the loss. I do feel like Prince Phillip was a big factor in the royal family’s initial public reaction. I never liked him much, and felt like he had trouble changing with the times.

Russ and I were living in London the day Diana died. My sister Margaret was visiting from the states. I will never forget her coming into our room and waking us up telling us that Princess Diana had died. It was a surreal day. It was a Sunday and the city went completely silent.

Russ and I went into the office because we didn’t know what else to do. Our offices were next to Euston Station and I walked into the station to buy a news paper. Although the place had people in it, no one was speaking. The newsstand was stripped of most papers. You have to understand at that time Britain had something like 137 national newspapers and the newsstand at Euston carried at least 75 different ones,

We lived on the north side of Hyde park, not far from Kensington Palace and about a half hour walk through the park to Buckingham. By three days on from her death the smell of fresh flowers was so strong at our house due to the millions of flowers people were leaving at both palaces. Eventually those flowers didn’t smell so good, which was reflective of how people were feeling about the royal family’s handling of Diana and her tragic passing.

I was born the same year as Diana, and often have wondered what she would be doing as she aged. She will always live on in our memories as the most beautiful young woman who left us too early at 36.

Now we have to wait until December to get the final 6 episodes of The Crown. It will be interesting to see how far into the Queen’s life they go.

For now, if you haven’t watched the four episode of Season 6 I think you should. I feel like they handled that era well considering how much we all knew from living through it.