It was the 31st August 1997 when her death sparked an outpouring of grief throughout the world.
* Photo is from The Age newspaper.
I wasn't a huge Diana groupie or anything but I was shocked and saddened because she was young, she was famous and people like her didn't die....not like that....did they?
One of the questions radio hosts were asking this morning was "Where were you the day Diana died?" So I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane.
I remember that Sunday in 1997 well. I was 14 and I was watching TV when suddenly a newsflash went across the screen announcing that Diana and her partner Dodi al Fayed had been in a car accident in Paris. Details were sketchy at that stage but it seemed that Dodi had been killed but Diana had been rushed to hospital in a critical condition. I yelled to my mum to come quick and she was shocked but we had this strong belief that Diana would make it, that she'd be okay.
A little while later, another newsflash went across the screen that Diana had also died. We froze. We didn't cry but we were just so sad, especially for William and Harry. I also remember feeling sorry for Dodi and his family. With all the fuss over Diana, it seemed like no-one even cared about him.
In the months following her death, I noticed a shift in the way Diana was portrayed in the media. Just a year earlier, she was commonly referred to as 'Di' in gossip mags and there were headlines such as 'Di's sexy romp with new man' and stuff like that. After her death, she was always known as 'Diana' and was much more revered.
I wonder why Prince Harry in particular has gone off the rails so much in recent years, if it has to with the enormous grief of losing his mum?
It's hard to believe Princess Diana died ten years ago today. It's hard to even believe that's it's been ten years since 1997. In some ways it still feels like last year. But then it also feels so long ago.
It wasn't the only time Australia was in mourning either. 1997 was also the year of the Thredbo disaster when a landslide caused the collapse of two ski lodges and 18 Australians lost their lives. Then, a few days later, Stuart Diver was miraculously pulled out alive from under the rubble.
So much has changed over the years. In 1997, I was in Year 9 and was just starting to adjust to the big changes that happen in the transition from primary to high school. In Year 8, a lot of friends from primary school had started to get into smoking and drinking and I tried it at first but I just couldn't get into it. Then I was basically excluded and although they were still my friends, I started to make new friends.
1996 was difficult, 1997 was starting to get better. I have many great memories and great achievements. I won the tennis trophy for my age group at my local tennis club and although I only had to beat one person, I was the underdog and winning was a fantastic surprise. My netball team made the preliminary final which was a huge surprise before we went down to a team of much bigger girls.
I'd started growing out my fringe the year before and wore a hideous green headband to hold it back. Boy was I glad when it was long enough and I could finally take it off. But there was no getting rid of the braces for yet another year.
I got my ears pierced but wasn't game enough to get anything else done (not that I could afford it or was allowed). A couple of my friends got nose rings but they got infected so they had to take them out.
I remember making a video in my English class with a group of friends which was meant to be an ad for something. We invented a product called 'Party Pooper Paper' which was basically toilet paper which we decorated with textas. It was so much fun filming it in the girls loos.
I had crushes on several different guys and me and a friend of mine started inventing code names for them so no-one knew who we were talking about. Mine was 'Leaf' and hers was 'Rock'.
One of my friends stupidly stuck her bracelet up her arm and we had to soap up her arm to get it off. Then she went and did it again! Another friend was so embarrassed when she picked up her bag after lunch and a tampon had fallen out of it. She quickly dropped her bag again so the guys wouldn't see.
You couldn't go to the loo at school without being greeted with stench of cigarette smoke and deoderant (as if deoderant would really hide it haha). In Phys Ed lessons we were made to go the beach and swim which in freezing cold Albany is pure torture. If you wore trackies instead of jeans then you could prepare to be dacked.
I took Indonesian for a year and while I was good at learning words, I sucked when it came to stringing sentences together.
On the home front, we adopted my beautiful cats, Ellie and Marmalade who were five at the time (they're 15 and ancient now). I was devastated in June when my parents sold our house which we'd lived in since I was seven and bought another. We along with the cats and Lily the hen made the trek across to other side of town and I soon grew to love the new place even more than the old one.
Hanging out with friends rather than parents was the cool thing to do. I went to the Albany Show without my parents and went with friends instead. I remember when I went to the beach with some friends and we saw another girl from school down there who asked if she could hang out with us. It turned out her ex-best friend was also down at the beach somewhere with her gang and was planning on beating this poor girl up. Some of my friends wanted to swim out to the pontoon but this girl didn't so I stayed with her on the beach and soon we were hiding from the gang of girls who were now intent on bashing both of us. We got away.
Hanson, Aqua, Savage Garden, silverchair, Marilyn Manson and the Backstreet Boys were all the rage. One of my friends was so obsessed with Hanson that every inch of her bedroom wall was covered with Hanson posters and by the following year she had all the CDs and a couple of t-shirts. I never got into the whole Hanson thing and my walls were covered in pictures of people that no-one else thought were good looking. I wasn't purposefully trying to be different, I just didn't think JTT, Devon Sawa and Leonardo DiCaprio were cute. Soon there was a big trade in posters and clippings happening and everyone hacked up their TV Hits and Dolly magazines and traded to get pics of the stars they liked. I finally got a CD player that year.
Yo-yos were all the biggest fad and I just couldn't understand it. I sold my yo-yo to my brother and put the money towards buying another fad - Doc Martens. After painstakingly saving my pocket money each week, my mum eventually helped me out and I got a navy pair which I still have today. They are a bit scuffed but I consider them a great buy all those years ago, despite the price.
Tuesday night was the best TV night around because there was Friends, Blue Heelers, The X Files and Melrose Place on in that order. I didn't watch the latter two but Friends and Blue Heelers made Tuesday night my favourite of the week. I soon got sick of Friends and it's never ending storylines of bed-hopping singles but I became Blue Heelers' number 1 fan and the budding Maggie-PJ romance had me glued to the screen.
A lot has changed in those ten years since Diana died. I've finished high school, left home, moved to Perth, finished uni, started working and got engaged. Most importantly I've become a follower of Jesus, something that if you'd told me back then I'd do, I would have laughed in your face.
That's my trip down memory lane. How about you? How do you remember 1997? Where were you the day Princess Diana died?
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