-June 1997, and New York City is host to the world's hottest celebrity... selling history's most famous wardrobe.

-It was the auction of the century, and I made sure I went to it.

[ Camera shutters clicking ] It's wonderful that they're being used and they're not just rotting in a cupboard.

-Princess Diana is hoping to raise millions for her favorite charities.

-This unprecedented auction has drawn the attention of the media all over the world.

-It was an incredibly exciting, hot night in New York.

-$60,000.

$62,000.

-And he drove the prices up.

It was very exciting.

-$100,000.

[ Crowd cheers ] -And I think Diana was as surprised as the rest of us.

[ Gavel taps ] -And it's yours.

[ Cheers and applause ] -The auction was a hit parade of iconic moments in Diana's life and times.

There was the fairy-tale princess from a more innocent age... so-called "Dynasty Di" from the '80s... Hollywood glamour for a glitzy new world... ...and the newly independent woman of the '90s, just when girl power was in the air.

-The clothes were symbolic of a life that she led, and they were being left behind.

-Yours, Francis, for $200,000.

[ Applause ] -The auction would prove a tragic swan song rather than a new beginning, and Diana's death two months later revealed just how caught up we all were in her life.

Against the backdrop of the old order crumbling... and a new one taking its place... Diana was a modern woman for every age... -Hugging has no harmful side effects.

-...who made the waves, as well as riding them.

-I am not a political figure.

My interests are humanitarian.

-To tell the story of Diana's life is to revisit the final decades of the 20th century in which she played so great a part.

♪♪ ♪♪ In September 1980, the well-heeled residents in this block of flats in West London discovered they had a neighbor who was starting to attract attention.

-This is the entrance.

So this is Coleherne Court, where I used to live, and where she lived was on that corner there.

-Among them, Danae Brook, at the time, a young journalist taking time out to look after her children.

-And that's the road to where my children went to school.

And when they came back from school, they went down to Mr.

Barnsley's sweet shop.

And Diana would always be getting her orange, her "Evening Standard" and her Crunchie bar.

That's what they told me.

When the story about her and Charles first came out, I think it was "The Sun" had a huge photograph of her on the front page, with the sun shining through her skirt, which was quite remarkable, because you were not really supposed to do photographs like that, particularly of anybody related to the royal family.

So I remember the boys coming into the kitchen and saying, "Oh, she lives in our building."

So that was like, okay.

-The editor called me in, and he said to me, "Look, I want you to get involved today.

I want to go down to Chelsea and have a look at this lady Diana Spencer, who's rumored to be dating the Prince of Wales."

I wasn't very happy about it at the time.

And I said, "You must be kidding.

What, do you want me to stand outside the door?"

We called it doorstepping in those days, just to watch somebody walk across the pavement.

There wasn't anything photo, any talent needed for that.

-What made it unusual was her accessibility.

She was just a member of the public, if you like.

So when she went to and from work in the morning, everyone could turn up.

That's why you had these extraordinary scenes of almost her being mobbed in the street by photographers and camera crews.

[ Indistinct shouting ] -As we were neighbors, we could see how harassed she was.

There would be a phalanx of reporters and snappers here, and then they'd go right down to the end here.

Usually the reporters would be queuing up to here, sometimes part of the way down there, sometimes across the road there.

-I'm not going to say anything, really.

-Prince Charles did give us a hint himself.

He said we wouldn't have to wait too long.

-Careful!

-And people like us just basically wanted more and more of her, because she was already so popular before she'd almost ever done anything.

-Lady Diana was born into a world of large country houses set in huge rural estates.

She grew up in Park House, practically next door to the Queen, whom she called Aunt Lilibet.

-Diana came of age at a time, the 1970s, when the prevailing mood was not so much leveling up as taking the toffs down a peg or two.

-Five earls, two dukes, two baronets, and one knight have come to this course at Beauly to learn the secrets of warding off the ravages of death duty and the deathwatch beetle.

-Hard-pressed aristocrats went back to school to learn how to survive in a hostile world.

-I've got a very large house full of treasures and a large park, and I thought I could probably get a lot of very useful information.

-Diana's own family sold off some paintings and opened a tea room at Althorp House for paying visitors.

-The English lords have clearly demonstrated their determination to survive at any price.

-Diana formed part of a horde of upper-class types who migrated to London to forage for work and romance.

They had even recently been named after the area where they congregated.

-Diana was absolutely a Sloane Ranger.

-She epitomized the upper-class girl.

You weren't expected to have an education.

You didn't really need a "proper" job, and you could wear nice floaty frocks.

-The Sloane look was exactly little short, frilly collars on blouses and sort of small cardies and big, full skirts.

And this is at its best.

[ Laughs ] It was just a county uniform.

Not my look at all.

Not a look that I had any understanding of.

-It's worth remembering in British society at the time that the tide was turning against posh people.

They were suddenly, you know, it was no longer quite the thing to be posh.

And yet people forgave her, if that's the right word, her poshness.

She brought a kind of humanity to her background, and the fact that she was both posh and we could talk to her at a -- you know, at a normal level was slightly different and quite unique.

[ Camera shutter clicking ] -A few months into the courtship, a story was published that threatened to derail the royal romance.

The "Sunday Mirror" alleged that Diana had been smuggled on board the Royal Train for a midnight tryst with Charles.

[ Train whistle blows ] Diana hotly denied the story and, not for the last time, decided to set the record straight by talking to a journalist.

-She felt she could trust me because I lived here, because she knew my children.

And so in the end, she decided she would talk to me, and I went to her flat.

And that's what I did.

-By the end of 1980, 19-year-old Diana Spencer seemed to be within a whisker of bagging Prince Charles.

But she wasn't the first in that position.

Like any heir to the throne worth his salt, the bachelor Charles had his pick of society thoroughbreds.

-They're off to a perfect start, all in a straight line.

-In the 1970s, early contenders in the Prince of Wales Derby included Davina Sheffield, but she was felled when an ex-boyfriend suggested to a tabloid that [gasps] she wasn't a virgin.

- the hopes of millions.

But his jockey... -Diana's older sister Sarah was also considered a promising filly until she gave an interview to a magazine stating that she had dated thousands of men.

Charles ditched her.

-There goes another one down.

-So when newspapers suggested that Diana had boarded the Royal Train for a secret tryst with Charles, she decided to do a bit of virtue signaling.

-So, this is the piece that I wrote in the "Daily Mail" in November 1980.

And this is the first interview anybody ever got with her.

"I asked Diana why she thinks so much attention is being directed to her now.

'Because I haven't got a background,' she says.

'A background of leaping in and out of bed with people,' she finishes.

'That's what everybody else seems to have.

I mean, I haven't had a chance to have a background like that.

I'm only 19.'"

She was blushing when she talked about whether or not she'd had affairs, and she was, in a way, trying to tell me that the reason she thought she was being favored was because she had not had affairs with other people.

So she was clearly conveying to me that not only was she a virgin, but that she was expected to be.

-With a father who was equerry to the Queen and a grandmother, Lady Fermoy, who was close friends with the Queen Mother, the world of royalty was more familiar to Diana than most, and her matrimonial sights were set suitably high.

-From a pretty early age, from the time she was a young teenager, she always had that sense of destiny, that feeling that she was going somewhere, and she even talked about it in relation to her love life.

She said that she kept herself tidy for what lay ahead.

That's to say she didn't lose her virginity.

She wanted to remain intact for whatever fate had in store for her.

-Diana's dynastic ambitions were well-known to her wider circle.

-Ray Hunt services the family's electrical and film equipment, and he remembers something prophetic she told him at her sister Jane's wedding.

-She did say to me, "Nothing like this for me, Ray."

She said, "Westminster Abbey or nothing."

And I said, "You're joking, Diana."

And she said, "Not really."

[ Band playing ] -By the time Diana's engagement was announced after a six-month courtship, she and Charles had been on a grand total of 13 dates, some of them chaperoned by his grandmother.

-It is still a much more deferential period.

So you still had these very starchy public, almost like a box into which this new royal couple was shoved in a box and shoved on the nation's televisions.

-Can you find the words to sum up how you feel today, both of you?

-Difficult to find that sort of word, isn't it, really?

-It's very clear that she's not really expected to say very much.

She's not just expected to start riffing on how happy she is to be engaged.

She's supposed to say she's happy and then shut up.

I mean, you could have put Victoria and Albert, had there been television in the Victorian age, and it would have rolled a bit like that.

-Lady Diana's father described her this morning as -- he said he thought she'd make a very good housewife.

-It was nice that he said that.

[ Laughter ] -We've yet to see.

-Sisterhood is powerful!

Join us now!

Sisterhood is powerful!

-On the surface, Diana seemed far removed from the decade of activism that had transformed the lives of women.

-We just want what men have had all these years.

-Women, join us!

-In Britain, legislation for equal pay and against sex discrimination was passed.

Women were starting to bag the top political jobs.

-Thank you very much.

Thank you.

-And sexual liberation went mainstream as contraception became generally available.

-I actually loved the '70s.

[ Laughs ] Well, definitely for women -- and I was in my teens then -- it was a game changer.

It was about, you know, burning your bra.

For us, the pill came along.

As teen girls, we had a new freedom.

I don't think it can be underestimated, the availability of the pill, that, you know, having sex didn't automatically mean having a baby.

That was major for women.

But I guess Princess Diana, being so chaste and virgin-like, we expected our royalty to be like that.

Royalty was meant to be -- They had a completely different code.

-If there was indeed a different code, then on her first outing as a royal fiancée, Diana seemed determined to rip it up.

-The palace did not know in advance about the dress she chose to wear.

And by normal royal standards, it was fairly revealing.

-I had the pool rota on that occasion when she came out in that black dress, cleavage and everything, and it had fallen out everywhere she was.

[ Chuckles ] I mean, she looked sensational.

She came up the stairs, and we were waiting for her.

And I knew that I had a page-one picture.

There's no question about that.

I think she would have known she was going to get a lot of attention, but I don't think she realized how low that dress was until she saw the stills the next day.

Wow.

Royal family.

Don't see them like that very often.

-According to Diana's later account, the only person not impressed by the dress was the groom-to-be, who complained about its color.

-I think in the main, except if you're talking about going into mourning, I think that black is not worn by the royal family.

It is more or less a rule.

[ Indistinct conversations, camera shutters clicking ] -If that black dress pointed towards a less demure Diana, then another decision she made in the run-up to the wedding suggested that all that '70s bra burning hadn't been lost on the future princess.

-I think there was one moment which really channeled that transition from the '70s into the '80s, and that was when Diana, in her wedding vows, took out the phrase to promise to obey.

And it was just a little marker that said, these are different times.

Something has changed.

And something of those gains, those progressive gains of the 1970s, had sort of filtered their way through, even to this rather posh and rarefied and grand world.

-But if Diana was channeling the spirit of the times, then she was also influencing them.

The Lady Di look spread across the country like an invasive species.

-We want Di!

-And once the cry for Di started... -Lady Di, could you wave?

-...it never really stopped.

-♪ I could die with you in the crimson night ♪ -I created what I called the Royal Wedding Unit, and we ran a story on the air every night running up to the wedding, and people said, "Could you make it longer?

Could you make it a program every night rather than just a kind of five-minute item?"

-What sort of meal might she cook for Prince Charles?

-Oh, I think perhaps, um... grilled chops.

-So the appetite was enormous.

I mean, in a sense, it was unquenchable.

-When she was 7, she went off to Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk, a traditional English prep school.

-Good morning, everyone.

-Good morning, Mrs.

Wood.

-Reporters were dispatched across the globe in search of something... -I remember when I asked her a question, she'd get red, red.

She was so shy, you know.

-...anything... -[ Chuckling ] Legs everywhere.

-...to say about the 19-year-old nursery teacher turned future Queen of England.

-She was extremely good at helping us in the kitchen and was always very keen to get on and clear that up.

-For many in the country, Diana was a welcome distraction.

-The only jarring note was provided by well-known anti-royalist Member of Parliament Willie Hamilton.

He suggested the engagement announcement was timed to coincide with the release of Britain's unemployment figures, which have reached nearly 2.5 million.

-Does anyone imagine that there is the smallest political gain in letting this level of unemployment continue or that there is some obscure economic religion which demands this level of unemployment as part of its grisly ritual?

-Mrs.

Thatcher was elected Prime Minister in 1979, promising a sort of electric shock therapy for the country's ravaged economy.

But her economic medicine came with some nasty side effects -- a harsh recession accompanied by soaring unemployment.

-♪ Keep the key in your pocket ♪ -The new economic Darwinism saw heavy industry collapse, and young people were particularly affected, with around a quarter not having a job.

-So Andrew Palmer joins the dismal row who wait every day for news in vain.

-It all set the dystopian stage for what would turn out to be some of the worst urban rioting in living memory.

-In Brixton were some really quite shocking scenes I witnessed.

There was a real feeling of almost fratricide on the streets.

I didn't take part in the riots, although I sympathized with what the rioters were doing, because there's no doubt the police were very, very discriminatory.

-And the only way to defuse the situation is by decreasing the presence of the police within the area.

-What started in London spread throughout the country, culminating most dramatically in Toxteth, Liverpool, three weeks before the wedding.

-The country was divided crudely, pro- and anti-Thatcher.

And the wedding was an event which kind of, for once, really didn't involve Margaret Thatcher.

[ Trumpet playing fanfare ] -In the past few weeks, the world has seen nothing but riots in the cities of England.

In the past few days, that's all changed.

Everyone's been showing the other face of Britain.

-For Great Britain PLC, the royal wedding was an opportunity for a bit of national rebranding.

-[ Speaking indistinctly ] -This is the wedding of the whole world, and the whole world loves a wedding.

-The wedding will have an audience of more than 500 million people.

That's a sixth of the world population.

From Africa to Australia, from the Far East to South America, they all want their own little piece of the biggest media event ever.

-You could almost imagine the Queen herself hearing that catchy tune.

-Yeah.

-She's probably humming our theme song as we speak.

-For U.K.

broadcasters, the wedding was a chance to show Britain could, if nothing else, rule the airwaves.

-We wanted to have a helicopter above the scene.

Well, we were told that was not going to be possible.

So we said, "Well, if we can't have a helicopter, what can we have?"

And we came up with the idea of the Goodyear airship.

-Final preparations were well advanced to help Bob get some of the most spectacular views of the royal wedding as he hangs out of the airship at 1,000 feet.

-We persuaded the powers that be that an airship doesn't make much noise.

[ Airship engine humming ] Well, the truth was, we didn't really know that to be the case whether that was true or not, 'cause once it went up on the day, it made a hell of a racket.

[ Airship engine humming ] -Bob will cover tomorrow night's firework display, and then I'll be with him to report on the royal wedding day itself.

♪♪ -But with just a couple of days to go, the good cheer had not spread everywhere.

In Toxteth, after a few weeks of calm, a new storm was brewing.

-We felt that, as young black Britons, we had an instance where, you know, we were empowering ourselves.

You know, we were challenging the very authority which threatened our existence.

It was inevitable, at least from our point of view, that, you know, there was going to be trouble on the streets again.

And that's exactly what happened.

-In July 1981, Britain was getting ready for the greatest national spectacle since the coronation.

But if, as the saying goes, the past is a foreign country, then few would actually choose to visit early-'80s Britain.

-Birmingham's after-dark scenes -- lush, plush, and there's not much hush.

-The food could be a little ornate.

The Wi-Fi was nonexistent and the exchange rate eye-watering.

So it's small surprise that escapism was the order of the day.

And one phrase above all was on everybody's lips.

-We'd love for her to look like a fairy princess.

-It's a fairy tale.

It's beautiful.

-It's like fairyland, you know.

-It was that fairy tale of marrying your prince and overcoming darkness.

And people were ready to buy into it because the '70s had been so tough.

-16 reigning monarchs, scores of heads of state, and Nancy Reagan had jetted in for the only show in town.

-When else would I ever have a chance to see a royal wedding in my lifetime?

And this is the first one of this kind, as I understand it, in, what, 112 years?

[ Indistinct conversations ] -And thousands poured into London to secure their spot for the following day's fun.

-Mrs.

Jones, how long have you been here?

-Since half past 1:00.

-You're planning to stay all night?

-Yes.

-On the eve of their wedding, the bride and groom made a final TV appearance, recorded shortly after Diana had learned of Charles's ongoing friendship with Camilla Parker Bowles.

-With all these heavy responsibilities and these public duties that you're both going to have, are you going to have time for the private life, for making a home?

-You're the one with the domestic responsibilities.

-Are you looking forward to making a home at Highgrove, for example?

-Oh, yes, very much so.

Looking forward to being a good wife.

-And Prince Charles has been a great help to you in that... -Well, a tower of strength.

-Gracious.

-I have to say that 'cause you're sitting there.

-[ Laughs ] I'm sure you would anyway.

-Only days before, Diana later revealed, she told her sisters she wanted to pull out.

"Well, bad luck, Dutch," they had said.

"Your face is on the tea towels, so you're too late to chicken out."

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you very much.

Thank you.

♪♪ -As dusk fell and with just a few hours now left until the ceremony would begin, tens of thousands made their way to central London for a fireworks display.

-David Cox checks the giant Catherine wheel, because his job's the hottest job of the night.

[ Fireworks exploding ] It's 35 feet across, and he's turning that wheel by hand.

And as it turned out, life got very uncomfortable for him.

-Exhausting, very hot, and I'm burnt slightly.

-Burnt?

-Yeah.

-Where?

-Got heat burns on the hands and on my neck.

[ Fireworks exploding ] ♪♪ -I mean, I was aware that, you know, the wedding was going to happen.

Um, but it really didn't mean that much to me at all.

[ Indistinct shouting ] -Not everyone in the country was joining in the celebrations.

-Hey!

-Steady, steady, lads.

[ Indistinct shouting ] -In Toxteth, after a period of calm, there was a devastating finale to the race riots that had started a month earlier, witnessed by Jimi Jagne, then a 17-year-old apprentice electrician.

-The general perception seemed to be that, you know, this was a case of hooligans gone wild.

This angered us a great deal, because we realized that, you know, despite all the lengths that we'd gone to to be heard, you know, we weren't being listened to.

[ Indistinct shouting ] The thing that got me most of all, I guess, was just seeing the flames everywhere, you know, all of these buildings burning.

You don't really appreciate what it is to see a building on fire until you've seen several on fire at the same time.

-Violence turned to tragedy when police struck down a 23-year-old disabled man, David Moore, who died in hospital in the early hours of the morning.

-It was clear right there and then that he'd been hurt really bad, and that fact alone made it shocking, but to see him actually struck by a police vehicle that swerved towards him, as well, um... well...that was the most shocking thing, I guess.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Britain that night was a tale of two nations.

-Piccadilly at 1:30 a.m.

saw tens of thousands already making for the wedding route.

The crowd around Buckingham Palace at 2 a.m.

Not a quiet night for Prince Charles inside or for Lady Diana 200 yards further up the mall.

[ Crowd cheering ] -She'd been put in a room at Clarence House facing the mall, so she could hear everybody -- all the crowds gathering and chatting away.

She was trying to get some sleep.

And, of course, as soon as she put her head down, the fireworks exploded.

[ Crowd singing indistinctly ] What exacerbated the situation was the fact that she was very nervous about -- about what was going to happen.

She felt that her future husband didn't really love her.

She -- She had tried just a few days before to stop the -- the wedding, so she felt very much out of control.

♪♪ -Well, the big day has arrived.

In four hours' time, Charles Philip Arthur George Mountbatten-Windsor marries Diana Frances Spencer.

Britain and the world will celebrate the wedding of the Prince and Princess.

-And the wedding day weather -- It'll be sunny in London, and rain looks... -Around 600,000 people took to the streets for their piece of the fairy tale.

[ Crowd cheering ] -Well, it's the atmosphere.

It's a piece of history in the making, really.

It's nice to be part of it.

-What made you come up here today?

-The atmosphere.

-To get away from this horrible recession.

-♪ If you're happy and you know it, wave your flag ♪ -Well, there they go.

[ Crowd cheering ] -Like everybody else, I got caught up in the excitement of the wedding.

I mean, I really did.

I mean, it was my first royal wedding.

♪♪ -In 1981, the average cost of a wedding was around £1,000.

Those choreographing this wedding had a glass carriage to play with and real-life footmen.

Above all, though, it was the dress, with its £13,000 price tag, that worked hardest to transform 20-year-old Diana into a fantasy.

[ Crowd cheering ] -And here she rustles down in parchment silk, and every knowing eye alights on the veil and the full skirt puffed out like a crinoline.

-The circumstances were bound to ruin the dress, because they should have known that she was going to be in a tiny little carriage with her father.

It was a joke.

And when they unraveled 40 meters of taffeta, you know, that was really excessive.

It really was.

[ Laughs ] -And those who know nothing of fashion just know how great she looks.

-It's not what I would have designed.

[ Fanfare plays ] You know, but I think it was right for the times.

You know, it was very big and very important.

And a lot of train.

[ Laughs ] -Yes, she wanted this very grand dress.

But at the same time, this thing, I mean, it's like something out of a museum case.

-Diana Frances... -The thing weighed a ton.

You could see it was very uncomfortable to wear.

The sense that you're almost upholstered rather than dressed.

And that is that tradition that you put those robes on, and from that moment, you are someone else, and there are different rules that apply to you and different demands of you.

That's the world she stepped into.

[ Fanfare plays ] -My lasting memory of the day's events is that as the royal family and Lord Spencer come out of the -- of St.

Paul's Cathedral, they're standing there watching Prince and Princess go off in their carriage, and suddenly Earl Spencer points up to the sky and says -- you can lip-read him saying, "Look at the airship."

[ Airship engine humming ] And they sort of look up.

And in the background, you can hear this hum, this buzz and everything.

[ Airship engine humming ] And I was kind of, you know, really pleased when it landed.

[ Crowd cheering ] -I was living in a council flat in Stockwell, and I watched the royal wedding on television.

It was an amazing, astonishing spectacle.

But I wanted to see it not just on television.

I wanted to be there on the day, and I thought, "I've got to be part of this."

And I just got in the car, parked round the back of Buckingham Palace, which seems rather surprising, and was there among the crowds.

[ Crowd cheering ] -Just watching this, I didn't realize the extent to which people took to the streets for this.

You know, it's -- I mean, the numbers are just incredible.

That is -- I mean, that is really surpr-- I mean, it's like that part of London is just completely full of people.

And you know what?

It's nice to see everybody so happy and appear to have gotten so much happiness out of that particular day.

It's just so ironic, really, that that kind of happiness wasn't being felt in our neck of the woods.

You should come and watch this, Rita.

You'll like this.

[ Crowd cheering ] I mean, it's -- it's quite moving, actually.

I think when you see this, it'll bring a tear to your eye.

So how well do you remember the day of the wedding, then, Rita?

-Absolutely every single bit of it.

-Okay.

-It was amazing.

We had a day off upstairs, and I arranged to have all my jobs done so that I could be there watching everything.

It was glorious.

It was just such a happy, happy day.

-Diana's royal life had begun.

The honeymoon -- on board Britannia and in Balmoral.

-How are you enjoying married life?

-Highly recommend it.

-Have you cooked breakfast yet?

-I don't eat breakfast.

[ Laughter ] -A regular royal would have now gently receded from the limelight.

But having embraced her, the public were not going to let her go.

-I just -- I just loved her.

I loved her to bits.

I loved her for who she was and the way she was.

And, bless her, she was very shy.

And to see her coming from that to being the woman that she became was absolutely beautiful.

-♪ It's a boy, it's a boy, it's a boy ♪ -Within a year of the wedding, Britain found itself staging a double celebration.

In London, news broke that Princess Diana had given birth to a son and heir.

-It's rather a grown-up thing, I find.

It's rather a shock to my system.

-On the other side of the world, Britain had just prevailed in the Falklands conflict.

-There is a white flag flying over Stanley.

Very marvelous.

[ Laughs ] [ Crowd chanting ] -Just listen to everyone.

I must go down and join them.

I knew it would be difficult, but I knew that they would do it.

-Yeah.

[ Crowd cheering ] -As it happens, a week after Port Stanley fell, there's the next heir to the throne.

There on the doorstep at the Lindo Wing are Charles and Diana.

So somehow the British royal family's fortunes seem in tune with the fortunes of Britain.

-The Falklands victory helped transform Britain's self-image.

Instead of an ailing post-imperial power, here was Britannia back ruling the waves.

[ Crowd shouting ] Diana had shown how effective she was at generating a different sort of patriotic fervor, in evidence on her first visit to Wales as its princess.

[ Crowd shouting ] -Suddenly, here was someone who actually stopped and talked to people.

But Princess Di had that eye contact, that smile.

She was one of those first stars, if you like, that was relatable.

Like, you know, I could sit next to her and she would talk to me.

Now, no one would ever think that of the Queen.

And that was huge.

-The Prince of Wales seemed to be getting just a mite bored and wandered off on his own.

-Brits always had that stiff upper lip.

They still did, and the royal family was the crown of the stiff upper lip.

And even though she still is upper-class, she didn't act that way.

-Can I have my hand back?

[ Laughter ] -I mean, she was warm towards ordinary working-class people.

She wasn't aloof.

-In the afterglow of the wedding, Diana was having an unexpected cultural impact.

-I think in some ways, Diana kind of rebrands the aristocracy.

It becomes more acceptable again, less dowdy to be posh.

You've got all these brands like Laura Ashley and Osborne & Little.

At the same time as Diana is coming to prominence, you've got the National Trust becoming a big deal.

-While Diana was being feted in Wales, millions were tuning in to one of the TV smash hits of the decade, "Brideshead Revisited," glorifying the British aristocracy.

Even Sloane Rangers roared into the mainstream.

-Actually, flowers are frightfully nice at this time of year.

-I'd be delighted.

-Absolutely -- -Absolutely delighted.

-Flowers are frightfully nice at this time of year.

-Oh, you are brilliant.

-[ Laughs ] -Instead of being objects of class war, toffs were now harmless figures of good-natured fun.

But it wasn't just aristocratic fortunes that Diana helped to restore.

In 1983, she joined Charles on a visit down under to Australia and New Zealand.

-The British press have dubbed it the royal tour into the unexpected, making much of the republican leanings of Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

-A week before their arrival, Australia had elected as prime minister a man committed to getting rid of the Queen as head of state.

-We are about a fundamental change in the way government operates.

-Australia had been talking about -- still is talking about -- becoming a republic.

I mean, I interviewed Bob Hawke, and, yes, they really wanted to get rid of the monarchy very seriously.

-What had been planned as some regular royal PR now turned into a high-stakes diplomatic mission to shore up the Commonwealth.

-As the ritual welcome unfolded, both couples must have been thinking of Mr.

Hawke's published desire for Australia to become a republic.

-How much did this trip cost?

-If republicanism was not yet mainstream, fervor for the monarchy was in short supply.

-When they landed at Alice Springs, there was virtually nobody there, and as we drove into Alice Springs, there was nobody there, and when we got to the place where they were staying, there was almost nobody there.

So you cannot think that actually, you know, the people of Alice Springs were that excited about this.

They weren't.

-In a highly unusual break with royal tradition, Diana had brought along 6-month-old William on the Antipodean tour rather than leaving him at home with the nanny.

It was a triumph of PR, as well as modern parenting.

And the more Australians saw of Diana, the more they liked her.

-The Australia tour for Diana was really a baptism of fire.

She was on the road for six weeks or so, undertaking something like 55 flights, and I was one of the journalists who followed her around every day.

[ Crowd shouting ] -I'll always remember that day at the Opera House in Sydney.

I mean, wow.

Just to see her.

People just wanted to see her.

-The royal couple took to the streets of Sydney.

The turnout was impressive.

-And, you know, every stage of the trip, it just got bigger and bigger.

[ Crowd shouting ] By the time we got to Brisbane, 100,000 people in the streets of Brisbane.

It became an extraordinary event.

[ Crowd shouting ] -When the royals finally arrived, the excited crowd was like a bomb ready to explode.

-It was quite overwhelming and at times quite dangerous with the surges of crowds.

[ Crowd shouting ] -People wanted to kiss her, try to touch her, you know.

The Australian public could not get enough.

-The -- The most difficult moments were undoubtedly on a walkabout when they would change sides.

People who thought that the Princess was going to come their side suddenly had the Prince coming their side, at which point you would get, "Diana, Diana, come over to our side."

-One, two, three.

-Princess Diana!

-Over here!

[ Crowd shouting ] -The crowds on one side of the street would groan when Prince Charles was there.

-[ Groans ] -That's what they wanted.

"Diana, Diana, over here, over here!"

Poor old Charles.

[ Crowd shouting ] -After six weeks' exposure to Diana Down Under, the royal fortunes were on the up.

-It was very gracious.

It wasn't just a -- like a dead fish.

It was a real handshake.

-The crowds seemed enormous, and republicanism seemed some way off.

-So for the royalists in Australia, Diana was -- was manna from heaven.

Australians are very warm.

And Diana reciprocated that warmth.

So they loved that.

You know, they saw an Aussie-ness, if you like, about Diana.

And so the republican voices were drowned out for quite a while because of Diana.

[ Camera shutters clicking ] -As she was preparing to head home as a superstar princess, Diana appeared to be playing the lead in a fairy tale written by Disney.

[ Camera shutters clicking ] But as the '80s beckoned, waiting in the wings and sharpening their pencils were the Brothers Grimm, ready to take over as scriptwriters.

-Psychologically, she couldn't cope with it.

She was just overwhelmed by the attention.

And she said to me that, you know, "I worked in a kindergarten one minute, then the next I was the Marilyn Monroe, the pinup for the ages."

It was too much for one person to take.

And she did find the whole thing very difficult to live with.

-Next time... -Hello, possums!

-...Diana has a night to remember... -Rock 'n' roll!

-...a day to forget... -She was in her element.

After an hour, Charles made her leave to go and watch a polo match.

-...and a telling encounter in Japan.

-"But they're so fat," said the Princess.

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