Fred and Gladys

Can't stand any of them tbh. Perhaps C should have married C (way back when) but lets not forget the need for a suitable heir. Hence D being set up to provide as necessary.

The royals really haven't moved on much since Henry V111 have they?

Camilla could have provided an heir. She was only young then, let's not forget!

I feel sorry for the pair of them. He should never have been born into Royalty.

I couldn't possibly "feel sorry" for any of them Anya Living the life of extreme privilege as they do.

I save my pity for those people who deserve it.

Yes perhaps she could have Ana but maybe she was "checked out" and her genes were not good enough.

Well said *gillybob".

I would hate to live the life that they do! We keep them like expensive pet animals...

be interesting to watch, Ill be recording it

feetle

I do not think Charles should step aside for William. Fed up of this youth culture so many are obsessed with.

I don't believe Charles led Diana on, more the other way , cunning little minx in my opinion. Her father was the eager one to get a daughters bum on the throne , it failed with one daughter so they wheeled on number two.

Why else did his mother in law go against her own daughter at the custody hearing but to keep the Spencer girls close to the windsors

If the film version of the life of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire was anything to go by - it must be inbred to produce the right sort of heir to vast fortunes. Pleasure came in another form perhaps.

Diana's stepmother, (Acid) Raine Spencer, and her step-grandmother, Barbara Cartland, had a lot to do with placing Diana where she would be noticed. Rather like the loving relations in Wolf Hall.

Rather like Mrs Middleton then.

I have always felt sorry for them all to be honest. Diana was raised in a seriously dysfunctional family, with her maternal grandmother supporting her Father in his custody claims, and then her ghastly brother turned her away when she asked to come home, he was however glad to have her buried there so that the hordes could pay to come and visit. She was a victim of the Queen Mother's meddling Edwardian ways ( a wife for the heirs and a mistress for the rest). I felt heart sorry for both her and Charles, and yes little has changed since Wolf Hall! I understand the worries about another abdication crisis, but as someone said earlier, surely the courtiers and officials could have learn their lesson from the car smash life of Princess Margaret following on from the lack of permission to marry Captain Townsend. Mind you, I do understand that some of this decision was down to Margaret herself, she chose to keep Royal privilege which she would have had to renounce had she married a divorcee. All things considered, I wouldn't have their life for any price.

I think there are plenty people raised in both decent and dysfunctional families who deserve your pity so much more than this pantomime of a family GillT57 allthough I do agree I wouldn't want their life for any price. Lets face it none of us really know what goes on behind the scenes do we? Perhaps they are all having a good laugh at us plebs working ourselves into early graves in order to keep them in the manner to which they are accustomed.

Yes you are right gillybob there are many more people deserving of sympathy and help, but the point I was clumsily making was that money and position do not save children from emotional neglect, income and class ( ghastly word) are not guarantees of a safe, happy childhood.

I completely agree with you there GillT57 All the money in the world (and lets face it, they have got more than their fair share of it) hasn't made them any better people than all the rest of us has it? Quite the reverse I would say.

How well do you know them,*gillybob*? Or are you relying entirely on what you read or see in the media?

I wasn't aware that I did "know" them or even claim to Lilygran .

Isn't "what we see or read in the media" all any of us have to rely on?

Gillybob and Anniebach have got it right. I knew the Spencers, and the Fermoys (Diana's maternal grandmother). Lady F was a very big fish in a equally small pond (NW Norfolk). She was a 'lady' in waiting to the Queen Mother when Queen Elizabeth (as she was then) was in Norfolk( which was quite often both during the time she was queen and and in widowhood. )

In fact the Fermoys were not arisocratic at all.... hubby was an alderman who was knighted for services to the community ( and for making sure the Royals were all shown due respect whilst on their winter hols at Sandringham). Lady F gave evidence against her own daughter ... how nice was that (?) when her SIL applied for custody of their three children, because their mother was 'a bolter' ( the term applied to women who fled the marital home in those un-enlightened days). In my book, that was unforgivable of the old goat social mountaineer.

Who knows what Diana's mother had to put up with during her marriage to 'Johnnie' Spencer'? But I'm sure grandma knew the family were on to a 'good thing' when her daughter married the heir to Althorpe and an ancient title. And she did exactly the same thing with her granddaughter, except this time she threw her to the wolves. I firmly believe she had much to answer for.

FWIW Lilygran I was around Norfolk at the time and saw the whole disastrous picture unfolding.

The media present a range of views and we should always ask ourselves who is presenting the view and why. OK, absent, I'll accept that as personal knowledge but it doesn't alter my point, that nearly all we know about celebrities of any rank is what is presented to us, often with ulterior motives. I don't like gossip.

As regards Charles marrying Camilla when he was younger. It couldn't have happened because she is Catholic and therefore any children from the marriage would have had to be brought up as Catholics. Back then (and even now) there were many members of the establishment who would regard this as impossible as the monarch is head of the Church of England. In fact until 2013 it was illegal for the monarch to marry a Catholic. I feel sorry for both of them and hope they have managed to find some happiness now.

So when they married in 2005 that was ok because he wasn't the monarch.
I think they look very settled and he looks the most content he's ever been.

Camilla isn't a catholic. She married Andrew Parker Bowles in a Roman Catholic ceremony and their children were brought up in the catholic faith.

Yes and of course and by then little chance of them having children and the succession was ensured. People forget the absolute dread there is amongst some people of a Catholic monarch.

The day of the engagement Johnny Spencer gave an interview. He said how happy he was etc then said - she was a perfect specimen when she was born , not a flaw on her. Why would a father say this at an engagement, horrible man