Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
SHY DI SHE LEFT BEHIND
A timid kindergarten teacher with a passion for Barbara Cartland novels, Lady Diana Spencer’s world was about to turn upside down
When we were first introduced to Lady Diana Spencer she was Shy Di, peeping out from under her fringe, good with children and hamsters (but she had failed all her O-levels twice), the girl from a broken home who ‘kept herself tidy’ in the hope of being rescued by a prince – just like in her favourite Barbara Cartland novels. But was Di really shy? Her friends deny it. She tormented her childhood nannies, and one courtier who had a daughter at the same prep school took steps to remove his offspring from Diana’s bad influence. She goaded her stepmother
Raine with poison-pen letters and silent phone calls, a tactic she would use later in life. Shy Di was conscious of her status too. When her father inherited the earldom, she ran down the corridor at school shouting, ‘I’m a Lady, I’m Lady Diana now.’
PENNY JUNOR Journalist and biographer
‘Although I hadn’t seen Diana in the flesh before I had seen plenty of her on television, and what shocked me on her first tour in 1981 was how much she had changed in the space of a year. When the Press first realised Charles was seeing Diana she was round-faced and unworldly: a typical Sloane Ranger in unremarkable clothes and flat shoes who worked at a nursery school. One of the most iconic photos from that time was taken in the garden of that school, where her skirt became transparent and we had our first glimpse of those amazing legs. Charles was said to have teased her, “I knew your legs were good, but I didn’t realise they were that spectacular.”
‘A year later, the duckling had turned into a swan, but she had lost a terrifying amount of weight – because, as we later learned, she was in the grip of a devastating eating disorder.’
ELIZABETH EMANUEL Fashion designer
‘I think her waist went down to 23in before the wedding, which is very small – she was like a large 10 to a 12, and not fat at all. She didn’t look like she had any weight to lose and she was only 19, but you could actually see the bones in her face. She looked wonderful and in fact for the pre-wedding ball in July 1981 we did a dress designed to look very sexy and emphasise how small her waist was.’
KEN LENNOX Photographer
‘Diana was very good with the photographers in the early days and as a naturally polite young woman she would co-operate with us. One evening I was talking to her outside her flat. She knew my family were still up in Scotland and she said, “Are you going to get home for Christmas?” I said, “I doubt it”, and when she asked why I said it was because we needed some good close-ups of her in case an engagement might be announced. She said, “If you get those will you be able to go home for Christmas?” When I said yes, she said, “Right, tomorrow morning come to the flat at 7 o’clock and if there’s no one else there I’ll come down and sit in the car and you can do some close-up pictures.” So I turned up at seven and she came down, didn’t say a word, went straight to her car, sat inside, rolled the window down and just smiled at me. I shot a whole film – they were great, with lots of different expressions. It gave her an out, in that it didn’t look like they were posed, it looked like they were photos taken on the run.’
JAYNE FINCHER Photographer
‘ We’d have funny chats about my colleagues, it was a bit like talking to someone you went to school with. We’d observe things, saying, “Look at that awful dress”, or, “That photographer’s quite goodlooking.” She used to bite her nails, as did I, and we used to compare them. It was nice, non-threatening.’
DR JAMES COLTHURST Diana’s confidant and old friend
‘I first got to know Diana when she was 16 on a ski trip in France with her family. She discovered our group was there and she knew some of
them, so she just swung in to join us. She was one of only two girls who came to dinner at my flat and then did the washing up. That was typical of her, she was happy to muddle in.
‘ When she was first dating Charles she stood me up for dinner at her flat. When I got there her flatmates were there but Diana said, “I’m afraid I can’t do dinner, I’ve got to go out.” She pulled me out of the door and across the street to get some food for supper and brought it back, told the girls what they were to prepare and then disappeared. She came back at 10.15pm, saying, “It’s just crazy; they’re working him far too hard.” Everybody just nodded slowly, realising what was starting to happen.’