The Peopls Princess

The "People's Princess"

Diana Frances Spencer was born July 1, 1961, at Park House near Sandringham, Norfolk. She was the youngest daughter of three (Sarah b. 1955 and Jane b. 1957), and she had a younger brother Charles (born 1964). Her parents were Viscount and Viscountess Althorp, now the late (8th) Earl Spencer, and the Honorable Mrs. Shand-Kydd, daughter of the 4th Baron Fermoy. Earl Spencer was Equerry to George VI from 1950-1952, and to the Queen from 1952-1954, when he married Diana's mother. Her parents separated in 1967 after her mother left her father for another man, and the marriage continued to dissolve until 1969 when the divorce was made final. Diana's father won custody of the children. The continued to live with their father at Park House, Sandringham, until the death of her grandfather, the 7th Earl Spencer. In 1975 the family moved to the Spencer family house at Althorp in Northamptonshire in the English Midlands. After her grandfathers death, her title in turn changed to Lady Diana Spencer. Diana's father remarried Raine, Countess of Dartmouth in 1976.
Lady Diana was educated first at a preparatory school, Riddlesworth Hall at Diss, Norfolk, and then in 1974 went to a boarding school, West Heath, near Sevenoaks, Kent. At school she showed a great talent for music, dancing, and domestic science. Though she never excelled academically, she was recognized at West Heath with a special award for service in 1977. People described her as "a girl who notices what needs to be done, then does it willingly and cheerfully." Diana left West Heath in 1977 and went to finishing school at the Institute Alpin Videmanette in Rougemont, Switzerland, which she left at the Easter term of 1978. The following year she moved to a flat in Coleherne Court, London. For some time she looked after the child of an American couple, and she worked as a kindergarten teacher at the Young England School in Pimlico.
Diana and her siblings, growing up at her father's house on the royal estate at Sandringham and the family home at Althorp, knew the royal family from a young age, with Charles' younger brothers Edward and Andrew as playmates. Although their families had known eachother for many years, Diana...

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...rincess's coffin on its return journey. Upon arrival, the coffin, draped with a Royal Standard, was removed from the aircraft and taken to a wating hearse by a bearer party fromt he Queen's Colour Squadron of the RAF. The coffin was then taken to a private mortuary in London, so that the necessary legal formalities could be completed. Shortly after midnight, it was moved to the Chapel Roal in St. James's Palace, where it lay privately until the funeral on Saturrday September 6, in Westminster Abbey. Following the funeral, the coffin was then take to the family estate at Althorp for a private burial. The Princess was buried underground on an island in the centre of an ornamental lake.
Since their relationship became public in August, Diana and Fayed had been quite happy to let the press capture moments of tenderness and passion. Their last day together was reportedly typical of the romance-- supper at the two-star restaurant in the Ritz Hotel, which is owned by Fayed's father, then a night at a private villa across the Seine River. But the couple never got there, and Diana's hope for a discreet weekend in Paris with her new companion ended in tragedy.