Remembering Diana, Princess of Wales’ only ever visit to New Zealand – Stuff

Each anniversary of Diana, Princess of Wales death invites us to explore her lasting impact on culture, style, and Buckingham Palace itself but what role did the 1983 Royal Tour of New Zealand play in her legacy?

Arriving with Prince Charles on April 17, 1983, the newlyweds visit was supposed to be business as usual - but Dianas only visit to Aotearoa would shape the Royal family for a generation.

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20 April 1983: The iconic buzzy bee shot, on the ground of Government House, Auckland.

Arriving at the heart of Dianamania, the trip contained more drama (and iconic looks ) than The Crown could ever depict.

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Upon her return to England, Diana would tell royal biographer Andrew Morton that she was a "different person".

But it wasnt the thousands (upon thousands) of handshakes or the bright camera bulbs that changed Diana it was the discovery of her star power, cementing the young royal as a force to be reckoned with within Buckingham Palace.

Already, the tour was no routine Windsor journey at this stage, the royal celebrity era had begun, and the tour was designed with military precision, every day packed with processions, polo matches, powhiri, and photocalls.

The trip was an opportunity to escape the family fishbowl, as 21-year-old Dianas first overseas royal tour, and the couples first official trip.

Together, they represented the new generation of royals, one who did things differently.

The trip was memorable as a bellwether event for the couples marriage and the royal family itself signalling Dianas sense of steel, as she broke with royal protocol and refused to leave 10-month-old William in England.

This would lead to arguably the most iconic shot from the tour; Diana, Charles, and William playing with a buzzy bee toy on the lawns of Government House, Auckland.

Joan Kirk/Supplied

Waiheke Island resident Joan Kirk gets one chance to snap Diana, Princess of Wales, on her visit to New Zealand in 1983. The princess is talking to a group of school children at Eden Park.

Newly married, it was a period of media obsession with Diana; Charles acknowledged in his speech at Government House that no one could face a phalanx of photographers and come up victorious like his wife.

Not only the most photogenic royal, but also the most charming, Dianas public appearances created what royal biographer and commentator Tina Brown famously dubbed a bubble bath of national goodwill.

The bath might have drained since then, but Dianas magnetism and lightning-in-a-bottle charisma worked: a cartoon in the Melbourne Herald showed a map of Australia imprinted with a giant heart with the caption, Princess Diana. A permanent imprint!

The tour was not without detractors: as the pair arrived at the Royal Gala, a dollop of red paint was thrown onto the windscreen of their Rolls-Royce, and protester Dun Mihaka mooned Lady Diana as they arrived at the Paraparaumu air field.

Biographers like Brown and Horton note that Dianas wide appeal was misunderstood by the narrow minds of Windsor.

In a sense, Diana couldnt win Buckingham Palace was upset with her having upstaged the Prince at every event, something Charles joked about in his New Zealand speeches.

With the media attention came a lot of jealousy. A great deal of complicated situations arose because of that, Diana said in a 1995 BBC interview.

John Selkirk/Stuff

Princess Diana and Prince Charles watch Prime Minister Rob Muldoon present them with a New Zealand crafted kingfisher.

At first glance, the optics of the Royal Tour seem straightforward and simple.

But Buckingham Palace had a single-minded mission behind the tour: they needed to persuade the increasingly Republican Australian government, led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke, that the Crown still held real appeal.

Weeks before the tour, Hawke had already scrapped God Save the Queen as the national anthem, replacing it with Advance Australia Fair.

It was an important mission, and the Palace was nervous: The Queen is terribly worried before the tour because of Dianas youth and apparent shyness, wrote the Press Associations royal correspondent, Grania Forbes, at the time.

But the case for the monarchy was delivered in no small part thanks to Dianas trademark magnetism; as New Zealand High Commissioner Sir Richard Stratton to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office wrote: Princess Dianas clothes and homely (in the best, English sense) gestures towards children and Prince Charless witty speeches won particular acclaim.

During the visit, Diana and Charles visited Auckland, Wellington, Whanganui, Masterton, Christchurch, and Gisborne, waving to oceans of fans and enjoying their swelling popularity.

Arriving in Auckland on April 17, 1983, and leaving NZ two weeks later, their time in the country included a gala ballet at St James, a performance of Funky Town at Eden Park, a visit to Prince Edward on his gap year to Whanganui Collegiate, and a banquet at Government House in Wellington, hosted by Prime Minister Robert Muldoon.

Barry Durrant/The Dominion

Sir David and Lady Beattie farewell the Prince (obscured) and Princess Diana at Auckland International Airport, New Zealand.

Indeed, the latter was a lightning rod occasion for the media with police officers drawn into a tug-of-war by anti-monarchy protests, Charles applauding the New Zealand governments support for the Falklands, and an unusually avuncular Muldoon escorting schoolgirls with flowers down Lambton Quay.

Diana appears visibly moved by the powhiri (in contrast to the episode of The Crown, where the show presents the traditional Maori performance as a disorienting episode to reflect Dianas inner distress and turmoil).

This contrasts to Prince Charles smoothness with such affairs; when he visited younger brother Prince Edward doing his gap year at Whanganui Collegiate, the young Prince was adorned in a Maori cloak, famously prompting Charles to question: "What on earth are you wearing?

Its been 25 years since the world lost Diana, Princess of Wales the peoples princess.

The trip is bittersweet for what it doesnt show, and what the young married couple cannot know: that decades later, their particular model of the British monarchy would become a relic, and that the young royals would be in the headlines for less auspicious reasons.

But beyond the TV specials, the documentaries, the conspiracies, the memoirs, the embargoes and the sorrows, what we ought to remember is what the young princess showed so much of on her New Zealand tour; her sparkling charm, her capacity for joy, and her unparalleled style.

In a career flecked with protocol-breaking, Dianas ruptures with tradition on the Royal Tour set the stage for a new generation, allowing them to create their own rules.

The newsreels of Dianas 1983 New Zealand tour the one with over 200 outfits, a 100-plus British press pack, and one buzzy bee show just how well she connected to the public, how she endeared herself to legions of fans.

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Remembering Diana, Princess of Wales' only ever visit to New Zealand - Stuff