The shy nanny besieged when news of her relationship with Prince Charles broke. The deer in headlights startled by the reality of Royal life after she joined The Firm.
Diana’s story usually begins with those poignant images of a confused young woman newly courting our future king and suddenly catapulted into the limelight, trying to drive her mini metro through the hoards.
But while the attention she received undoubtedly sent shockwaves under her previously sedate life, Diana ’s early years had actually been played out alongside the royals. She was no stranger.
Get the day's biggest stories to your email - sign up for the Mirror newsletter
Born Diana Frances Spencer on July 1, 1961, at Park House near Sandringham, Norfolk, her parents, the then Viscount and Viscountess Althorp, later Earl Spencer and the Hon Mrs Shand-Kydd, rented their home on the Queen’s estate at Sandringham.
Earl Spencer had been a royal equerry for both King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II.
When Diana’s parents married in 1954 it was at Westminster Abbey, and the Queen was a guest. It was not a Royal wedding, but nevertheless, a huge society event.
Sadly, Diana’s parents split when she was six, and her mother left, a departure which deeply impacted the little girl, the baby of the family, who loved to dance and swim.
While custody battles raged, she was sent to boarding school.
She excelled at sport, but would fail her O-levels, never academically minded like Charles.
So the nanny, sometime cook, and Knightsbridge kindergarten assistant, living happily with flatmates in London’s posher parts, was far more ingratiated into royal circles than many other rich, young Sloanes would have been.
She was known to the royals, she understood their ways, or so they believed.
When Diana and Charles’ engagement was announced in 1981, it seemed a fairy tale.
The 13-year age gap and their varying interests were brushed aside. Surely they were cut from the same cloth? Surely it would be happily ever after...
