STEPMUM DIES

LONDON: Countess Raine Spencer, the stepmother of Diana, princess of Wales, with whom she had a rocky relationship, has died aged 87, her family said.

The aristocrat died peacefully at her home here on Friday “after a short illness”, her family announced in a statement.

The only child of the prolific romantic novelist Dame Barbara Cartland, she grew up and lived her life in the highsociety world of upper-class England.

Known for her bouffant hairstyle, pearls, immaculate dress sense and posh accent, she married three times in her life, amassing a collection of aristocratic titles.

She had four children with her first husband, Gerald Legge, ninth earl of Dartmouth, whom she married in 1947.

She met Diana’s father Earl John Spencer in the early 1970s and they married in 1976, when Diana was 15.

Diana, who married the heir to the throne Prince Charles in 1981, had a strained relationship with the countess.

Diana and her sisters nicknamed her “Acid Raine”.