An imposing red-brick mansion with varied styles, Sandringham House stands in the austere Norfolk countryside. It was built in 1870 for the future Edward VII and has remained the Windsors' winter haunt ever since. Queen Alexandra turned a blind eye to it, as did George V and George VI. The late Elizabeth II stayed there every year until February. The days are often gloomy and the only distraction is hunting fur and feathers.
It was in 1981, five months after her marriage to Charles, that Diana was first invited to share in the “joys” of Christmas at Sandringham. The 20-year-old young woman is already pregnant with William, and her pregnancy is making her nauseous.
The Windsors' “silly jokes”
Furthermore, she finds herself thrust into the middle of a family group whose habits and traditions she claims not to understand. Later, she confided to her biographer Andrew Norton, author of Diana, her true storythat she had been appalled by the “silly jokes” that made the Windsor tribe laugh out loud and her “strange behavior”.
Rather than expensive gifts, Elizabeth II and her family had the habit of exchanging “gag” items. So, after offering a luxurious cashmere sweater to Princess Anne, Diana received in return… a toilet paper roll holder! To try to get in tune, she will give Charles a leather toilet seat.
“It was very tense,” the 'princess of hearts' will remember. “It was terrifying and so disappointing. Stupid behavior, stupid jokes that only the initiated understood. I was really an outsider.”
Like a fish out of water
Still according to Andrew Morton, Diana therefore hated the atmosphere of Sandringham. His formal etiquette, the strict meal schedule, the religious services, the social pressure, the rigidity of customs: all of this went against his own personal values and revived his emotional torments.
Royal author Ingrid Seward summed up these feelings: “Diana felt like a fish out of water in the royal Christmas rituals. She felt scrutinized and judged, and the weight of expectation was overwhelming.”
But perhaps it is possible to discover another reason for this “phobia” which is not very understandable on the part of a young woman from the high British aristocracy and in principle familiar with its codes.
Third daughter of John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, and his first wife Frances Roche, Diana was born on 1is July 1961, at Park House, an outbuilding on the Sandringham Estate and she was baptized two months later at the village church.
His maternal grandparents, Baron and Baroness Fermoy, tenants of Park House, were very close to the royal family. Lady Fermoy was also a lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother – like Diana's other ancestor, Cynthia Spencer. The future Princess of Wales had always called Elizabeth II familiarly.Aunt Lilibet – Aunt Lilibet.” Her playmates were Andrew and Edward.
From then on, did Sandringham not remind her of certain episodes of a childhood marked by the divorce of her parents and which she would retrospectively describe as “very unhappy” and “very unstable”?
>> Read also: In the Point de Vue archives: Diana’s heartfelt cry
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