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What do people think Di did? asked the Great Auck.
Good question. From the bits I saw and read, the gist might be summarised thus:
1. She was photographed a great deal, here and abroad, and showed Britain's homegrown and universally gorgeous, well-befrocked face to the world to best advantage. People need Icons. She was our Eva Peron.
2. She pissed off the royal family when they spat her out, which was a change after the centuries of deference. "She was one of us, not one of them." Pshaw...
3. She went public with her "weaknesses" and thus stimulated debate about some forms of mental illness and about some aspects of sexual morality among the middle classes. I'm undecided whether that was a good or bad thing. Probably helped stoke the fires of "victim culture" in the long run.
4. She bred two handsome boys, from unpromising stock, to give the monarchy a fighting chance after HMQ shuffles off this mortal coil. Too early to say whether their personalities will be as engaging as their good looks.
5. She died, dramatically, before it could all turn sour. This also resulted in that astonishing mourning week and that funeral, which was an unparallelled phenomenon.
6. She hugged and hand-held people with AIDS in the face of a hysterical British public's ignorance and fear. I could kiss her for this last one, since I was working as a general nurse still and was faced daily with colleagues who wouldn't even touch someone who might be HIV positive, in their asinine estimation. Domestics refused to handle their crockery and cutlery. It sucked and she, undoubtedly, helped move things on greatly there.
I quite liked her, flawed as she was, but No 3 on the Great Briton's list? Don't be silly.
Darwin got my vote. Failing him, Shakespeare or Elizabeth I should have triumphed. I have no quarrel with the respect shown Churchill though, in which opinion I am guided by my fiercely socialist grandfather who was a striking miner in 1926 and cursed him for setting the troops on the miners at Tonypandy. He was grateful nevertheless for, and happy to acknowledge, the magnificent leadership the man gave in wartime. |
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