To say that the late princess has been through a lot is an understatement.
Although the late Princess Diana died in a fatal accident in Paris in 1997, she still lives on through her two sons William and Harry. But what did the princess actually look like in her younger years? We have listed a number of photos for you.
What was Diana’s childhood like?
Diana Frances Spencer was born the fourth child of John Spencer, Lord Althorp and his first wife Frances Roche. She has two older sisters – Sarah and Jane – and a brother John, but the latter died about a year before she was born shortly after giving birth.
Although she is in perfect health, there is great disappointment that she is once again not the family holder: they had counted so much on a boy that they had not even thought of a girl’s name: only after a week did they come up with Diana. “I should have been a boy,” she said herself. That came three years later, in the person of Charles Spencer. Here he is in the pram, with Diana behind him.
ParkHouse
The noble family is well connected: Diana’s grandmother on both her father’s and mother’s sides was lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mum. The family first lives at Park House on the Sandringham estate, which they rent from the Queen. In the summer, Diana spent a lot of time playing with Prince Edward and Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth’s youngest sons.
She is a happy little girl who especially loves small animals: hamsters, guinea pigs (this is Peanuts), rabbits (“Anything that fits in a cage”, according to her mother) and has her own cat: Marmalade.
Scared girl
Furthermore, as a child she already shows the warm-hearted traits that later characterized her: she tucks in her stuffed animals, walks with her dolls in the doll’s pram and helps her brother get dressed. They are both afraid of the dark, when little Charles calls for his mother, it is usually Diana who goes to him, no matter how afraid she is.
Althorp
When John became Earl Spencer due to the death of his father in 1975, they moved to their own estate in Althorp. Diana’s life has been messy and restless for seven years. She has numerous nannies, not all of them nice, and a lot of tension at home. Her fairly sunny early years came to an end at the age of six when her parents separated. The divorce does not do the family any good, Diana’s father demands and receives custody and not long afterwards sends Diana to a boarding school.
Talent
At boarding school, Diana, shy to the core, is not a high flyer. She does have admirable team spirit, she is very helpful and she is good at sports, especially swimming, diving, ballet and tap dancing. It says something about her that she does not have photos of her family in her room, but of her favorite hamsters Little Black Muff and Little Black Puff.
Raine
She then only sees her mother during the holidays. She finds little peace at home. Her father has remarried (behind his children’s backs!) to Raine, the flamboyant Countess of Dartmouth and a daughter of novelist Barbara Cartland. Diana is a romantic soul who enjoys reading Cartland’s books as a teenager.
Raine does not click with the children, who see her as a caricature of an Angry Stepmother. In Raine’s defense, her reorganization of the estate probably saved it from financial ruin. But her controlling personality made Diana feel from a very young age that she no longer had a real home. And that is the reason she continued with Charles for so long, when her own relationship was on the rocks: “I wanted to spare my children a broken family.”
Image: NL Image
