Parents Wanted a Boy: Princess Diana’s Unhappy Childhood

There is a version that Diana’s parents expected the birth of a boy after two girls. In fact, it happened: in 1960, John Jr. was born, but died in hospital 10 hours later. A year later, Diana was born.

The Spencers are known to have found a name for the girl for a whole week, as they were upset about her gender. Well, her name was Diana Francis.

“The parents really wanted a boy, but a girl was born again,” Diana shared. His mum even went to one of the hospitals in London to find out why they were unlucky with their sons! Perhaps this problem also affected the relationship between the spouses, and even the birth of Charles did not save the situation.

“Diana and I had two older sisters who always disappeared at school, so we spent a lot of time together,” her brother Charles Spencer said in September 2020. was not created to raise children.”

John Spencer, Diana’s father, was the eighth Earl Spencer and Francis became his first wife. They divorced in 1969 when Diana was eight years old, and this event had a great impact on all the children.

It turned out that their mother cheated on her father, and more than once. When she was packing to leave the house before the divorce, she told Diana that she would definitely visit, but that never happened. She no longer crossed the threshold of the house where the children lived, but they sometimes came to visit her. Frances married Peter Shand Kidd in 1976.

That same year, Diana’s father married Raine MacCorkindale. The children hated their mother-in-law and did not want to communicate with her and respond to her requests, they even called her acid Raine – “the poisonous Rhine”. In 1992, after John’s death, Diana publicly apologized to Raine for this behavior, and they were finally able to communicate normally.

Charles Spencer, at Diana’s funeral, recounted how she was by his side throughout his childhood and literally replaced his mother: back”. Afterwards, he said that he and his sister played pranks: for example, they had thrown the nanny’s things out the window.

However, Charles had to undergo lengthy psychotherapy due to childhood trauma. Diana was not always there and could come to the rescue: “Sometimes she heard me crying from her room, but she was too afraid of the dark to come and calm me down.”

When she was 9, Diana went to Riddlesworth School in Norfolk, but she didn’t like living away from home at all. “If you love me, you won’t leave me here,” she told her father. But she still lived in a boarding house until the age of 12 with rare vacations at home.

Then Diana entered the West Health School in Kent, but did not shine with knowledge there. They say she failed her final exam twice and completed her studies in Switzerland.

Sure, in some ways her life was wonderful, but it clearly lacked parental love.

“I had an unhappy childhood,” she once admitted. My parents were busy with their own problems. I remember how my dad slapped my mom in the face, and I cried and fell on the floor… Mom cried often.

Well, what happened next, everyone knows very well: meeting Prince Charles, a magnificent marriage, the birth of beloved children… and more trouble. But that’s a whole different story.

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