Hi and welcome to On This Day.
I'm here in our film vaults to find you this amazing story from 1981.
Prince Charles was once the UK's most eligible bachelor, but that all changed on this day.
Buckingham Palace announced his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer.
He was 32. She was 19.
Their wedding, later that summer, was a huge global TV event and watched by 750 million people.
However, the marriage ended in divorce in 1996 after four years of separation - during a turbulent period for the Monarchy.
11:00 a.m. Buckingham Palace.
The beginning of a day to remember for Prince Charles, Lady Diana,
and for quite a lot of other people too.
The long-awaited, much written about, engagement had happened.
There was a fair amount of unrestrained,
old fashioned happiness in the cold February air.
Congratulations, indeed.
Outside the Palace, the crowds were a little larger
than for a normal changing of the guard, but not much.
For who could know they'd hit on a particularly lucky day.
When they did know, the reactions were splendidly British.
It's good. It's great.
Innit? Cheers everybody up.
You know, to hear something like this.
He's getting on a bit, about time he got married.
I think it's really great.
- Why have you come here today?
To try and get a glimpse of Diana and Charles.
I think he should get engaged because he's getting older.
- But now he is engaged.
Yes.
- And it's been announced.
- What do you think?
Well, I think it's very nice.
Wonderful. Perfect. Couldn't be better.
- Why are you so pleased?
Because I think
she's just the right person for him.
Immediately after lunch, the Earl Spencer, Lady Diana's
father, most surprisingly appeared in the middle of the crowd.
Well, it was that sort of day.
His object, he said, was to take happy snaps of the Palace.
He'd always done this sort of thing on important days in his daughter's life.
At three o'clock, Prince Charles and Lady Diana
appeared for the first time as a couple.
And this was the first chance to see
the ring of sapphires and diamonds.
Now, these occasions...
In the past, they've been pretty stilted.
Not today.
It was all very relaxed because for once everyone was there.
And the same was true of our interview.
- What about the proposal, your Royal Highness?
- How did that come about?
Um, well, I asked Diana before she went to Australia.
Two or three days before,
which I thought would be a good idea that, apart from anything else,
if she went to Australia, she could then think about it.
And if she didn't like the idea, she could say she didn't or she did.
She's could say that.
But in fact, you actually said yes.
Quite promptly.
- Before you went to Australia?
Yes.
Then we had to sit on it for three weeks.
- Must have been an agonising three weeks. Did you?
- Did you speak at all?
I mean, the phone lines must have been pretty busy between here and Australia?
Yes, we tried, but it was quite difficult because I think it was
there was a certain amount of press interest there,
although they never actually found you, did they?
No.
But I rang up on one occasion and
I said, 'Can I speak?' And they said, 'No, we're not taking any calls.'
So I said, 'Well, it's the Prince of Wales speaking.'
'How do I know it's the Prince of Wales?' came back the reply,
'You don't, but I am.'
And I mean, eventually I got the number because they were staying somewhere else.
But they said, 'Oh,
the phones are tapped or something', which I found highly unlikely.
- Do you find it a daunting experience that
- yesterday you were a nanny looking after
- children; now you're about to marry the Prince of Wales
- and and one day you would in all likelihood be Queen?
- It's a tremendous change for someone, if I may say, of 19,
- to make all of a sudden, the transition.
It is.
But I've had a small run up to it all in the last six months
and next to Prince Charles, I can't go wrong.
He's there with me.
- Are you planning for the future?
- You must be planning for the future.
- Where you are going to live and that the sort of thing?
Yes, yes.
I mean, I've got this house in Gloucestershire, which
I aquired the last year.
- With marriage in mind?
No, no, not really.
I mean, I did want somewhere very much as a base, and I wanted somewhere
which was nearer to the Duchy of Cornwall areas that I could reach then
and visit people and look the farms and things so that was very convenient.
But obviously it's been a great help.
There's a lot to be done, and it's going to be marvellous to
to have somebody to to help sort it out.
- Lady Diana's father described her this morning as a...
He said he thought she'd make a very good housewife.
It's nice that he said that.
We've yet to see.
- Can you take us back to when you first met?
- If you can remember?
- Can you remember when you first met?
Yes. Certainly can.
It was 1977.
Charles came to stay, he's a friend of my sister's Sarah's, for a shoot.
We sort of met in a ploughed field.
- And what did you think then?
What was your instant impression, both of you?
What about Lady Diana?
I remember thinking, what a very jolly and amusing
and attractive 16-year-old she was.
And I mean, great fun and bouncy and full of life and everything.
And I don't know what you thought of me.
Pretty amazing.
- Did it cross either of your minds that
- in three years' time you would be announcing your engagement?
- Thinking of getting married?
Not at all. No.
Not at all.
- At what point did you decide that
- this was the right, the right lady for you?
Gradually, and I suppose towards
the end of the summer and the autumn last year,
and I began to realise,
you know, what was going on in my mind
and her's in particular, and all these things help.
But you know, it was a gradual business.
- Did you find it a very hard decision, Lady Diana?
I had a long time to think about it
because I knew the pressure was on both of us.
And it wasn't a difficult decision in the end.
It's what I wanted.
It's what I want.
- I haven't seen the ring.
- May I have a look?
Yes.
Wonderful sapphire and diamond.
- When were you given that, just last night?
No, Sunday.
- But not wearing it yesterday?
No.
- And when did you
- when did you tell the Queen that this was what you wanted to do?
Well, about three weeks ago so, as I say, we've had to sit on it
and hide it for three weeks, which hasn't been all that easy.
But I was absolutely determined that it was going to be
as near a secret as possible on the actual day.
That was my ambition.
- But you're both obviously excited,
- but it must have been awfully difficult trying to keep that secret.
Yes.
Very good for us.
- And good practice.
And good for the people we told too.
Quite interesting to see who can keep secrets.
- But it did pop up in the Times this morning?
Yes.
- Someone talked to the right newspaper.
It's what we call the top people's newspaper.
- No announcement yet of where and when?
Do you mean the actual wedding?
- Yes.
No because it was a lot to be decided, but
when is probably the latter half of July.
I should think.
It's, I think, quite a useful time for all sorts of different reasons
and the actual place will be decided.
- Honeymoon plans or is that something you have to talk about now it's official?
Well, I mean, we've had vague discussions about it,
but it's a lot depends on, you know, what happens now.
There are lots of different alternatives, and everybody has to go somewhere
where we one actually get away from everything else.
- The rest of the family have had that experience in the past.
Yes.
But that'll come in before long.
- Because now having
- agonised if you like, puzzled over it and decided,
- you're now going to be separated again because you're going to Australia,
- New Zealand, and you'll be away what five or six weeks?
Yes.
- What are you going to do in the meantime?
Oh don't worry I shall be very busy.
- Not back to the nursery and not back to flat sharing, presumably?
Nope.
- You've moved to your accommodation?
I've been moving all over the place, I should think.
- Trying to keep away from us?
Possibly, yes.
- You sort of made a little grimace there as if you rather like flat sharing?
- And that is something.
No, I was referring to the children.
I'll miss them.
- You'll miss looking after the children?
Right.
Well, they'll certainly miss you, my dear.
Hope so.
- Have you been to see them at all?
No, I haven't been.
I think that would have been a bit of a give away.
From the moment you appear, anyway and people automatically jump to conclusions.
- Well, now you can appear in public it must be a great relief to you.
But it is rather, yes.
- Can you find the words to sum up how you feel today both of you?
Difficult to find the right sort of words.
Isn't it, really?
Just delighted and happy, and I'm amazed
that she's been brave enough to take me on.
- And I suppose in love?
Course.
Whatever in love means.
- Well it obviously means two very happy people.
Well, from us, congratulations.
Thank you you very much.
Very kind.