Are Di's Legacy And Memory Fading?
She was called the People's Princess and, 10 years after her death, Princess Diana's memory is safe in the hearts and minds of her countless fans.
But, say some observers of the international scene in general and Britain in particular, it may not be burning quite as brightly as might have been anticipated. Those observers also note that the humanitarian causes she worked so hard for have faded somewhat from the public eye.
So what state, exactly, are Diana's memory and legacy, 10 years after her death in a tragic car crash in a Paris tunnel?
The funeral oration of her brother, Earl Spencer, may be proving something less than prophetic, some experts feel.
"We give thanks," he said, "for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister, the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana, whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds."
But, notes CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar, 10 years later, the most concrete monument to the memory of the princess is a fountain in Britain, a problem-plagued fountain that, with its rushes of water, is supposed to depict the turbulence of Diana's life.Photos: Diana, The Crusader
For a woman who cared so much for the homeless and the sick, MacVicar points out, there isn't a shelter or a hospital that bears Diana's name.
A charitable foundation set up in her memory raised millions after her death, then squandered much of it in senseless lawsuits.
Many of the causes she worked for, even the campaign against land mines, no longer get quite as much public attention, MacVicar adds.
"I think it was probably misconceived to imagine you could continue Diana's work without Diana there," her former private secretary, Patrick Jephson, remarked to MacVicar, "because I know that Diana's work came seventy percent from Diana's own instincts."
On The Early Show in New York on Thursday, publisher and broadcaster Andrew Neil, who was editor of London's Sunday Times during the turbulent Diana years and was rector at St. Andrews University when her son, now Prince William, was a student there, told co-anchor Hannah Storm he feel that, in Britain, "People still have fond memories of her. They like the things she did. They like what she represented, which was a modern monarchy, a monarchy that belonged to Britain, that sounded like Britain. Our monarchy is mainly German. This was some English blood in it. This was unusual -- something from England in the British monarchy. She had ties to the people, and our people, as opposed to their people.
"She was able to deal well with people at the lower end of the social spectrum. She once said to me, 'I get on better with them than I do people at the top.' But, all that said, people have fond memories of her. But there's not a great outpouring of grief, of wanting to have this 10th anniversary. People kind of get on with their lives now without thinking too much about her. She's already become a kind of historical figure in Britain."
On the other hand, Neil continued, "I think she's definitely a bigger deal in the United States (than in the U.K.). Since you got rid of royalty, you've become obsessed with it. We've kind of moved on. We don't bother too much about it anymore.
"People who die young, their memories are often improved. JFK, in this country, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley. Marilyn Monroe, of course. Diana dying young has not boosted her memory. She'd be a bigger figure today if she was still alive."
Neil says he thinks Diana's "greatest memorial" will be Prince William.
"He is a fine young man, the best of Diana is in him. A lot of people, if they had the chance, would say when the queen dies, let's jump Prince Charles (William's father), let's go to this young man of the 21st century rather than this old guy form the 20th century."
Neil also remarked that a flap over the memorial service for Diana scheduled for Friday "has meant that, instead of everybody uniting to honor Diana's memory and think of all the great things she did, it's kind of reopened the civil war between the royal family and the Spencer family. All the different factions are fighting each other. Prince Charles, as usual, gets it wrong. He says he thinks his wife (Camilla Parker Bowles, who first said she'd attend, but now says she won't) should be there. And then, as public pressure builds up, he says, 'No, no, maybe she shouldn't be there.' And there is more coverage about this than about Diana's memory, so it's a bit of a mess."