“Chuck & Di Have a Baby” Paper Doll Book 1982 by John Boswell, Patty Brown, and Will Elder Cut out dolls of Prince Charles and Princess Diana to dress up in.

Who wasn’t thinking about Diana yesterday?

Princess Diana’s memory looms large over King Charles’s coronation. She is the proverbial elephant in the abbey.

Truthfully, seeing Queen Camilla crowned made me uncomfortable. Watching her smile and wave made me queasy as the entire sordid saga of betrayal played out in my mind, ending of course with the tragic death of Diana.

This was a fairy tale where everyone did not live happily ever after.

The ending page was particularly poignant as I looked through a copy of a paper doll book of Charles and Diana’s early years.

The royal crowning of King Charles and Queen Diana.

“Chuck & Di Have a Baby” Paper Doll Book 1982 by John Boswell, Patty Brown, and Will Elder.

1982

In 1982, when this 20th-century fairy tale was still real, I purchased a paper-doll book cheekily called “Chuck & Di Have a Baby” by John Boswell, Patty Brown, and Will Elder. Published by Simon and Schuster right before the actual birth of Prince William, it featured cut-outs of Charles and Diana and the anxiously awaited Royal Baby. When the book came out the sex of the baby was unknown, so baby Wales is safely dressed in yellow

We were still aglow from the fairy tale wedding of the century that had taken place the previous July. Charles was still Prince Charming, and his beautiful shy Princess was still smitten with him; any whiff of scandal lay far into the future.

Sadly, the book closes looking forward to a future King Charles and Queen Diana that was not meant to be.

The prospect that his mistress would be crowned his Queen was unthinkable.

Diana may not be Queen but she remains The Peoples Princess.