Princess Diana's brother gives insight into her childhood

Rare snapshot
Princess Diana's brother gives insight into her childhood

“I love how happy we all look.” With these words, Princess Diana's younger brother Charles Spencer shares a childhood photo in which they can be seen together with their mother. The siblings are said to have been very close. The 59-year-old remembers.

Charles Spencer gives an insight into his childhood with his sister Diana, who died in 1997. The younger brother of the late princess shared a rare snapshot from childhood on Instagram. The black and white photo shows Spencer sitting on a swing, next to him is a mischievously smiling Diana and in the background the two's mother, Frances Shand Kydd.

“My mother, Diana and I, around 1967. I was probably three years old and Diana was five or six,” writes Spencer. “I love how happy we all look.” During this time in his life, his mother gave him the nickname “Buzz”: “Because she saw in me the endless energy of a pretty happy – and busy – bee.”

Diana and Charles Spencer are the two youngest of five children of the 8th Earl Spencer, John Spencer (1924-1992) and his first wife Frances Shand Kydd. They have two older sisters, Sarah and Jane. Another brother named John died a few hours after his birth in 1960.

Charles Spencer gave a moving eulogy

Charles Spencer, the 9th Earl Spencer since his father's death in 1992, is said to have had a very close relationship with his sister Diana. At her funeral in Westminster Abbey on September 6, 1997, he gave an emotional eulogy in which he publicly rebuked both the Royal Family and the press for their treatment of his sister. Diana is buried in the Spencer family estate of Althorp, which her brother manages.

In addition to his work as head of the Spencer family, Charles Spencer works as a journalist and author. The 59-year-old has seven children from three marriages: Kitty, twins Eliza and Amelia, Louis Spencer, Edmund, Lara and eleven-year-old Charlotte Diana, whom he named after his sister.