Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis never got the opportunity to meet their late paternal grandmother Princess Diana—she died in 1997, 16 years before George, the eldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales, was born in 2013. Even though they never met her, she is a vibrant presence in their home and in their lives, including the Wales three carrying on a sweet tradition that Diana once taught her own children, Prince William and Prince Harry.
Manners are an important part of the royal family experience, and Diana encouraged William and Harry to write thank you notes to anyone that had helped them. Diana “wanted to ingrain a sense of appreciation into her two sons, with her often praised for her excellent way of parenting,” The Daily Express reports.
In addition to teaching them the value of a thank you note, Diana also took her two sons on charity visits and normal days out, looking to expose them to as normal of a childhood as possible. “She took the young royals with her on her private charity visits from a young age,” said Diana’s biographer Andrew Morton. “One of the reasons was [that] she didn’t want the boys to grow up thinking the whole world was 4x4 Range Rovers, shotguns, and nannies.”
William and Catherine have also been adamant about giving their children as normal of a childhood as possible and have also adopted Diana’s thank you note lessons. “[William and Catherine] have developed this brilliant knack of letting as much as they can seem spontaneous and that’s how the children see it,” a source told The Daily Express. “Table manners, thank you letters, little courtesies are being drilled into the children so they become automatic.”
And Diana would love it: Earlier this year, Sarah Ferguson—Diana’s former sister-in-law and dear friend—told Good Morning America that she believed Diana would have been “very proud” of all five of her grandchildren.
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