Diana, Princess of Wales, was one of the most photographed women in the world, yet the years before she met Prince Charles were spent far from the cameras, in a family that was quietly falling apart.
A house on the royal estate
Diana Frances Spencer was born on 1 July 1961 at Park House, a family home on the royal Sandringham estate in Norfolk. Her father, John Spencer, then Viscount Althorp, was heir to an earldom. Her mother, Frances, was the daughter of Lord and Lady Fermoy, close friends of the royal family.
She was the couple’s fourth child. Her sisters Sarah and Jane were older. A brother, John, had been born about 18 months before her but lived for only a few hours. Her younger brother Charles, the current Earl Spencer, was born in 1964. Diana later said she grew up aware that her parents had hoped for a son when she was born.
A mother who left
In 1967, when Diana was six, her parents separated and her mother moved to London. The children at first spent time with both parents, but the divorce in 1969 turned into a custody battle. Diana’s maternal grandmother, Lady Fermoy, gave evidence in support of her son-in-law, and her father was granted custody of all four children. Frances married Peter Shand Kydd the same year.
In recordings she made for her biographer in the early 1990s, Diana described a very unhappy and unstable childhood, remembering her mother’s tears and a father who did not talk to the children about what was happening. She also recalled lying awake listening to her younger brother crying for their mother.
Schools, a new title and a stepmother
From the age of nine Diana boarded at Riddlesworth Hall in Norfolk and then at West Heath Girls’ School in Kent, which she left at 16 without the exam results she had hoped for. She was remembered there for her kindness to younger pupils, her love of dancing and her swimming.
In 1975 her father became the 8th Earl Spencer, and the family moved to Althorp, the Spencer estate in Northamptonshire. A year later he married Raine, Countess of Dartmouth. The children’s relationship with their stepmother was difficult for years, although Diana and Raine grew closer much later in life.
Why it still matters
Biographers often trace Diana’s later struggles, and the warmth she showed to children and to people in hospital, back to these years. Interest in that part of her life returned in November 2020, when the fourth season of The Crown introduced a new generation of viewers to the young Lady Diana Spencer.
Sources: published biographies of Diana, Princess of Wales, her recorded interviews released in 1992 and 1997, public records of the Spencer family.