Charles Spencer to publish memoir of Diana

[OccasionalHope]

Could be interesting.

You will not be surprised that I disagree.

Of course it will be written from his perspective but Diana and Charles shared the unique experience of their mother’s departure, they shared summer holidays in Scotland with their mother, they remained close despite a determined effort on behalf of some members of the press to characterise their relationship as rocky, see above, it’s not hard to guess who is pushing that narrative!

Charles Spencer has the unique insight of being almost Diana’s contemporary in age and having grown up within the same family, and he will have had far more access to witnesses in her life than many, and I therefore believe his biography will have more authority than any other. Not least because he is a historian and journalist who writes well and understands the genre, so I doubt he will be blinded by lack of objectivity, especially thirty years on.

Yes, I think those are all fair points.

Yes arranged marriage in all but name. They’d met 13 times when they became engaged?

Dh and I were an arranged marriage, as were my parents, in-laws and all Dhs siblings and most of my cousins. You couldn’t go out indefinitely either. A decision had to be made sharpish.

The rule is each family protects their side. So eg the RF protects Charles, the Spencers protect Diana.

Even on the day of my wedding, my dad checked I was happy to go ahead. Dh as the male, would have had to go ahead, poor guy (never think that’s fair!).

The story about the tea towels is it true? They could have stopped the wedding, if she really didn’t want to go through with it.

anyway I just wanted to give arranged marriage view, if indeed it was one. I’m sure I read somewhere that they were at the start happy with each other and in love and wanting it to succeed. Just so sad about the way it ended. But humans aren’t perfect.

Yet Diana was very traditional in many of the choices she made for her boys' upbringing

• although Diana was considered "hands on" (for a royal) - William and Harry often spent more time with the nanny. She famously became threatened and jealous of Barbara Barnes' closeness with William and sacked her on the spot - refusing to allow the nanny to say goodbye to the boys or ever speak to them again
• W & H were sent to full time boarding school from the age of 8
• Diana eschewed the more modern curriculum of Gordonstoun where the outdoors and service to others were emphasised alongside academics and instead chose the deeply conventional, upper-class Eton tradition of the Spencer Family.
• Although I admit she did like to be papped being "Disney Mum" in the holidays at theme parks, fast food and pop concerts

I think that for a woman born in the 1960s Diana was pretty traditional and by all accounts very aristo. There are many accounts of her behaviour and dislike towards Sophie Rhys-Jones because of her middle class background and I think she would have given Catherine a hard time and would not have liked Meghan at all.

How arrogant to assume the motivations of someone you don’t even know towards their dead sister.

His romantic relationships have nothing to do with it! He was brought up in a dysfunctional unhappy home and suffered SA as a child. That often isn’t a recipe for great marital harmony.

Diana, if anything, was a constant in his life through all of the turbulence.

She was the product of a very unhappy background. Her father wasn’t very nice to her mother, who was married at 18. Her maternal grandmother actually gave evidence against her own daughter in the divorce case. She was very vulnerable and not worldly wise and those around her were encouraging her to marry the heir to the throne. It was a disaster waiting to happen, a royal generation ago the marriage would have just limped on. I think her family were culpable in letting her go ahead. I agree the hysteria on her death was ridiculous. Yes, it was sad that a young woman died leaving two boys, but even at the time it made me feel slightly sick at people reacting so strongly to someone they had never met. Her brother is also damaged I imagine but good writer or not, the world doesn’t need another book on the subject. It is unlikely to be impartial anyway.

Charles Spencer was three years younger than Diana so at least get your facts straight.

It’s obvious that monarchists, for very obvious reasons, are biased against the book before even reading it.

It will be interesting to see what insights he has. Does he have much memory of his mother leaving as I think he was only 3 - then both he and Diana went to full time boarding school at age 8 or 9 respectively (he has written a previous book about the trauma of attending boarding school young). IIRC Diana never lived full time at home again and married before Charles Spencer left school.

He was also not in the UK in the years leading up to Diana's death - IIRC he and his first wife Victoria, moved to South Africa and were embroiled in a very contentious divorce.

The thirtieth anniversary of Diana’s death is fast approaching, there were always going to be books written. I’m just glad that CS has taken it upon himself to protect his sister and write the definitive version himself.

@Filoparcels017 Hmm, I'm more cynical than you, I'm afraid! I think it's all about the cash.

It was a bad match - fault on both parts. But there comes a point where it benefits no one to keep raking it all back up. It just hurts her children.
She should he left alone now imo.

What, thirty years later?

Lady Fermoy (Diana's maternal grandmother) was quite a piece of work. She removed Diana's mother, Frances, from school at age 15 to throw her into the path of Viscount Johnny Spencer (later Earl Spencer) who happened to be engaged to someone else .... (just like something from a Jane Austen novel)

The ploy worked and at 18, Frances Roche found herself married to 30 year old Johnny Spencer but it was not a happy marriage (are we seeing the parallels here) and there was violence. Frances gave birth to Lady Sarah at 19, Lady Jane just after she turned 21 and then at 23 she gave birth to Lord John who died 10 hours after birth. She became very depressed but the families spelt out to her that it was her duty to keep having children because the earldom needed an heir. So just 9 months after her child died - she was pregnant again and had a baby the following year, although it was another girl - Diana. In 1964 she had her 5th child - the current Earl Spencer.

Then history repeated itself when Lady Fermoy got together with her friend, the Queen Mother, to push for a match between18 year old Diana and 30 year old Charles.

If it is published, please don't buy it. Let Diana rest in peace.

Her sisters were older. I wasn't expecting a 16yr old Charles Spencer to go having a quiet word anyone in the then Prince Charles's social curcle. Someone shouldve protected the vary naive and troubled Diana though and if not her sisters then who?!

I'm biased against the book because it will surely drag the whole tragedy up again and CS should've put William's feelings before his own need to gossip and overshare.

It must have been totally clear to anyone in the Spencer family what Charles was like. Her sister Sarah dated him for a bit in the 1970s and refused to consider marriage. She famously declared in 1978, "I wouldn't marry anyone I didn't love whether he were the dustman or the King of England"

Unsurprisingly they broke up shortly afterwards - yet a couple of years later Diana was engaged to him.

This, 100%, although it is rarely discussed.

And yet, however 'parvenu' the Spencers thought the Windsors were, the Spencers were prepared to push Diana into the Royal family's arms. So clearly not 'parvenu ' enough.... And true, the Spencers are wealthy and prominent, but so are many people. And what's parvenu about the House of Saxe-coburg gotha and hanover? Not in Germany they're not.

Paul Burrell described her as "an aristocrat to her fingertips".
At KP there was a nursery floor and the children were quite separate from the adults, unless by arrangement.

Precisely what my father said on the day of Charles & Di's wedding. Aristocracy not able to resist promotion and connection to Royalty...

I actually can't wait to read this book, though! I have a friend who knew Diana and absolutely adored her.

Lol, Paul Burrell stating the obvious there! What else could Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of the 8th Earl Spencer and grand-daughter to the 4th Baron Fermoy possibly have been?!

It doesn't seem to have sunk in, though, IYSWIM. Her kids off to boarding school age 8 - not exactly heavily modernised.

Doubt she would have been allowed much input in to that decision. Certain prep schools feed in to Eton and Eton was very convenient for teas with granny.

Yes, I agree. I think it was just the traditional way of raising children if you were aristocratic.

I think it's the Roche side of the family who were the social climbers

Lady Fermoy (who married the 23 years older Maurice Roche, Baron Fermoy to get her title) pushed her own 15 year old daughter Frances at the 12 years older Earl Spencer

Then she decided that one of her own granddaughters would take the next step up to be Princess of Wales (she threw Frances under the bus at the custody trial). So first Sarah Spencer dated Charles and then, when that didn't work out, 2 years later, Lady Diana Spencer was engaged to him.

Which of @Gloriia facts were wonky - she is clearly responding to a poster who references Diana's sisters. Perhaps you need to read and absorb more carefully before firing off a 'listen here, pal' type post, non?