When your family life plays out in public, the ups and downs are there for the whole world to see.
Even the Queen had to be frank when it came to summing up how 1992 had gone for the royal family.
She famously used a speech at the Guildhall in London 20 years ago to label it her “annus horribilis” — latin for “horrible year”.
The monarch told those gathered in the City of London to mark her 40th anniversary as Queen: “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.
“In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an annus horribilis.”
It was a 12 months where the family seemed to step from one disaster to the next.
What happened in 1992?
The Queen’s “annus horribilis” was wrecked by the collapse of three of her children's marriages — including the then-Prince Charles’ to Princess Diana — and the fire that severely damaged her Windsor Castle home.
The year started as it meant to go on with a meeting in January at Sandringham, her Norfolk residency, with son Prince Andrew and his wife, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, where they announced their intention to split.
After discussing it with the Queen, the couple agreed to delay any decision for six months.
But when photos emerged of a topless Duchess having her toes sucked by Texan businessman John Bryan, the pair sought a legal divorce.
Charles and Diana’s fractious marriage
The former Prince of Wales and his first wife did not legally get divorced until 1996 but the train was set in motion by 1992, with a series of embarrassing media leaks.
In June 7, a serialisation of a book, Diana: Her True Story, appeared in The Sunday Times exposing the widening gulf between her and the Queen’s eldest son.
There was further damage done by both players in the relationship when illicitly recorded phone call extracts were released.
The Sun published a transcript of a three-year-old phone call between her and friend James Gilbey in which he called her “Squidgy” and she trashed her marriage and the royals, calling them that “f*****g family”.
Matters deteriorated further in November when excerpts from another recording of a phone call were released, this time published by the Daily Mirror of Charles.
Only a few lines were revealed but they were enough to confirm Charles was having an adulterous relationship with old flame Camilla Parker Bowles — now the Queen Consort.
Charles told her: “I adore you”, and added: “Your great achievement is to love me.”
It was later revealed that he made even more risqué comments, joking about wanting to “live inside your trousers” to his mistress.
To close the year, the then-prime minister John Major announced in December that the royal couple were splitting.
All while that was going on, Anne, the Queen's daughter, was going through her divorce.
While the Princess Royal’s official split from husband Captain Mark Phillips was not damaging for the Queen, it was clear the royal “brand” was taking a battering.
Windsor fire
To cap off a terrible year, November 20 — the Queen and Philip’s 45th wedding anniversary — saw Windsor Castle engulfed by flames.
The fire started at 11.30am when a restorer’s lamp set a curtain alight. Flames quickly spread through the state apartments including St George’s Hall.
There was initially public sympathy for the Queen at the destruction of her home but the mood turned when the Government announced it would foot the £36m bill for the restoration.
In the end, the majority of the costs were footed by opening Buckingham Palace to paying visitors and charging an entry fee to Windsor Castle’s precincts.
Royal recovery
The royal splits and grumblings over the strain they were putting on the public purse meant the royal family image had been damaged going into the mid-1990s.
And while it would take time to recover, the Queen managed to put it aside as she came to represent a steadfast continuity for the country.
There was also a younger side to the family shown in the coming years, with the Queen's grandchildren, William and Harry, entering the media spotlight.
Charles kept his distance from Camilla publicly for a few years after Diana's death in 1997, but even she would eventually be accepted by the public following their marriage in 2005.
The Queen showed how close she had become to Camilla with one of her last acts, calling for the public to accept her as Queen Consort when Charles became king, as he did on Thursday following his mother's death.
* This weekend, the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror celebrate the life of Her Majesty the Queen with a commemorative special filled with all the key moments from Britain’s longest reigning monarch. Be sure to pick up your copy of the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror to get both pullouts.
