‘Partners in Crime’: Charles Spencer Shares Childhood Photos and Fond Memories of Sister Diana
Charles Spencer described how his book really celebrated how brave Diana was, even as a child.
Charles Spencer, who recently made headlines for his memoir, Swan Song: My Sister Diana, has always been known for his close, loving bond with his sister, Princess Diana. It’s no surprise that he has, to date, been grieving the loss of his elder sister. As the younger brother of the former Princess of Wales, Spencer has often looked back at the moments they spent together. Most recently, the Earl sat down with Penguin Press to look through his personal photo albums and share fond memories, and later a clip from Althorp featuring a segment of that conversation was shared on Instagram.
This reel, posted by Penguin Books in collaboration with the author, was captioned, “Last month, we were lucky enough to visit Charles Spencer at @althorphouse for a deep dive into his photo albums. All of these photographs feature in Swan Song, a poignant memoir exploring the life and death of his beloved sister, Diana.” The clip opens with Spencer crossing his legs, lightheartedly joking, “I’ll get the old leg up there!” Looking at a childhood photo of himself and Diana, he warmly exclaimed, “I love these because they look very much as we were, sort of two partners in crime, really!”
He also recalled a conversation with their former nanny, sharing, “I heard from a nanny, not so long ago, who said that the two of us were quite a handful to look after, which I take as a badge of honor, really.” Looking over a childhood birthday party checklist written by the late Princess, he smiled warmly and said, “Her birthday was on the 1st of July, but she obviously had a birthday party a couple of days late this year, and I loved what she wanted.” He added, “1 big (very) chocolate cake, and then all of these different spellings.”
Following this, Spencer opened up about Diana’s battle with dyslexia, remarking, “One of the things Diana laboured under was this undiagnosed dyslexia. So, crisps, for instance, misses the middle s, and onion she spells Iona, and I celebrate that in the book.” He further added, “You know, there’s this girl who had all these difficulties with words on the page. Certainly didn’t have them in terms of emotional intelligence; she could connect with anyone!” He ended on a beautiful note, saying, “My father made beautiful photographic albums for each of us. So I knew where to look for these. But they’ve been sitting in a cupboard for a long, long time, and it was a lovely excuse with the book to get them out. One of the themes that I wanted to get across in this book was how brave Diana was, even at this age.”
