Diana (11 page)

At a children’s hospital in Surrey, she said, “William and Harry had lots of games for Christmas. I spent ages trying to work out how to play them by reading the instructions. But I found the instructions harder than the game. I’m as thick as a plank.”

On William’s first day of school: “Well, I was [sad] because it’s opening another chapter in my life, and certainly William’s. But he’s ready for it. He’s a very independent child. He’s surrounded by a tremendous amount of grown-ups, so his conversation’s very forthright. He was so organized that day that he chose his shorts and shirt, and it’s best to let him do that if you want him to smile at the cameras…. He was just so excited by it all, his first day of school, and there was a tremendous spirit of conversation. He was trying to get it all out. He just adored the children. He’s very much an organizer which might be helpful in the future years; he really loved it. William’s a typical three-year-old, enthusiastic about things. He’s not at all shy, but very polite, extraordinarily enough, where
perhaps Harry is quiet and just watches; he’s certainly a different character.”

Comedian Joan Rivers remembers the day she met Diana. William had just gone off to Eton, and she asked Diana whether she’d redecorated his room yet. Diana replied: “I don’t know whether to make it a sauna or a gym.”

“Sometimes [William] sounds like a thirty-year-old.”

“I want to bring them up with security. I hug my children to death and get into bed with them at night. I always feed them love and affection; it’s so important.”

On William: “He’s a deep thinker.”

“Charles and I have talked about how difficult their lives are going to be. We decided together to tell them everything before they read it or someone told them about it.”

She told
Majesty
magazine’s editor in chief, Ingrid Seward: “I have no wish to upset what is essentially part of William’s inheritance, whether he likes it or not.”

Her assessment of her sons in 1992: “William is a typical Gemini—very sensitive and emotional. Harry is a happy-go-lucky character who takes things in his stride. Harry is most at ease with the royal world. He loves castles and soldiers and pomp. William is very much his father’s son in his sporting habits and is at his happiest at Balmoral.”

“[William and Harry are] the only men in my life who haven’t let me down.”

On William at fourteen: “He’s getting very tall—and we all know which side of the family that’s come from.”

“I found myself wanting to hug and kiss [my sons] all the time. But they have rather passed that stage. I kept reminding myself that they were nearly young men who didn’t want to be kissed and hugged by their mother too much.”