I also thought that having posted the first picture of Diana, I'd post one of the last as well, from her photo shoot for Mario Testino in the Spring of 1997. I've always thought this was one of the best pictures ever taken of Diana and it's fascinating to observe how much she changed in 17 years.
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Have you ever seen this picture?
This is the first picture of Lady Diana Spencer to ever appear in a newspaper or magazine. It was taken in July, 1980 by Arthur Edwards, a photographer for the Sun newspaper, who has been snapping royals since 1974. Diana would have just turned 19, Charles, who's not in the picture, was 31. In The Diana Chronicles, Tina Brown explains how the picture came to be. Edwards and Sun reporter Harry Arnold were at a polo match featuring the Prince of Wales. They "spotted her [Diana] there, a fresh-faced girl they vaguely recognized with a gold letter D hanging around her neck, who seemed to be included in the royal party. The resourceful Edwards took some pictures for his files, just in case."
A couple of months later, during Diana's famous visit to Scotland, she was spotted by reporters while fishing with Prince Charles by the side of the River Dee. Photographer Edwards figured this was the same girl from the polo match in July and pulled the picture out of his file. On September 8, 1980, The Sun ran the picture on its front page, with a headline that said "He's in love again. Lady Di is the new girlfriend for Charles." This was also the first time Diana was called "Lady Di," and the name stuck. It sure seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?
Yesterday, August 31, marked the 18th year since Diana died and I've got the royals on my mind. Some years I note the anniversary and blog about it; some years I don't. (Read what I was thinking on the 15th anniversary in 2012 here.) Things certainly have changed since the "Diana era," and if you weren't paying attention at the time, or don't think about the royals as often as I sometimes do, it's easy to forget how truly chaotic, and yes, undignified, things got in the late 80s and early 90s as Charles and Di did battle with each other. Things have settled down now, everyone's behaving themselves, mostly, and there's an intriguing milestone coming up on September 9.
In 1992, at the 40th anniversary of the Queen's accession to the throne, British journalist John Hartley published a charming book titled "Accession." It told the story, in great detail, of King George VI's death at age 56, while his daughter Princess Elizabeth was visiting Kenya, and the events surrounding her return to London and assumption of the role of Queen. At the end of the book, Hartley "did the math" based on how things looked as he was writing in 1991. At the time, Charles and Diana were still married, the Queen was 66, Charles was 44 and abdication by the Queen at some future date was considered at least theoretically possible:
"Assuming that the queen does not abdicate and continues to enjoy good health, she will celebrate her seventieth birthday on 26 [sic] April 1996. Two months later, on 14 June 1996 - and coinciding almost to the day with her "Official" birthday she will have reigned longer than her namesake Queen Elizabeth I, who reigned for forty-four years, four months and seven days. On 20 November 1997, the Queen and Prince Philip will celebrate their Golden Wedding. On 6 February 2002, the Queen will celebrate the Golden Jubilee of her Accession to the throne. She will then be only seventy-five years old.
... If one were to assume further, that the queen were to continue as Monarch after her Golden Jubilee, she would celebrate her Diamond Jubilee in AD 2012 at the age of eighty-five. Were she to live as long as her mother, the Queen Mother, she would have outlived and outreigned every other British Monarch by the time she was 90. Her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, died aged eighty-one, having reigned for 63 years and 216 days. The present Queen would eclipse this record by the end of AD 2015, when she would be only eighty-nine."
Other than living as long as her mother, who died at age 101, as of next Wednesday, the Queen will have met all of the milestones Hartley anticipated. Will she live to celebrate her 101st birthday, on April 21, 2027? (Note that in the text above, which is verbatim from Hartley's book, he misstates the Queen's birthday. She was born on April 21, not April 26.) It's certainly possible and I hope she does. Congratulations, Your Majesty and here's to many, many more years as Queen!
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