The Diana I knew

Diana’s biographer, Tina Brown, reveals the pain, loves and incredible evolution of her best friend, the Princess of Wales in this exclusive extract from a new National Geographic book.

Diana was always a rebel. She has been memorialised forever as the People’s Princess. But first and foremost, Diana was a Spencer. Hers was a family more than 500 years old, with centuries of experience as power brokers to the throne. She was never intimidated by the royal family or afraid to take them on. It’s one of the ironies of Diana’s story that it took a girl from an impeccably aristocratic background to break the monarchy out of the crueller rigidities of class.

To understand why, you have to look to the experience that shaped her. When Diana was seven years old, her mother, Frances, left her father, then Viscount Althorp, for Peter Shand Kydd, the man she adored. Diana’s two older sisters, Sarah and Jane, were already off at boarding school. Her younger brother, Charles, was too small to feel the pain – as Diana did – of their mother’s departure. They watched as her car drove off. Her pain was compounded by the treachery of Frances’ mother, Baroness Fermoy, who sided with her father in the custody dispute. When Frances returned to try to get access to her children, the butler shut the door of Park House in her face; they could not hear her screams to let her see them.