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Daily Mail
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Charles Spencer shares never-before-seen intimate photo of Princess Diana as he reminisces on 'proud' childhood moment
Princess Diana's brother Earl Spencer has today revealed an unseen photograph of the royal from the 1960s. Charles, 61, who runs his family's estate, Althorp, in Northamptonshire, took to his Instagram page this morning to share the sweet black-and-white image from his childhood with his 279,000 followers. In the snap, the British author and his sister, King Charles ' ex wife, who died on 31 August 1997 after a car crash in Paris, are seen proudly displaying their swimming awards by the swimming pool at their childhood home in Sandringham. 'We were never out of that pool,' the Earl revealed in the caption of his post, adding the hashtags 'childhood memories, proud achievement and learning to swim'. Starting his post, he wrote: 'A long ago summer, by the swimming pool at our childhood home, Park House, Sandringham - Diana and I both proudly showing off our swimming badges (sewn onto our swimming costumes). 'These were awarded (sparingly) by Mrs Lansdowne, a fairly terrifying but very gifted swimming instructor, who came to stay each year.' Park House, in the Sandringham estate, is where Diana was born on July 1, 1961, when her family were renting it from Queen Elizabeth II. The royal continued living there until she was aged 14 in 1976 when she moved to her family's stately home Althorp House after her father John inherited his title Earl Spencer. Commenting on Charles' post, royal fans couldn't hide their delight as they thanked the Earl for sharing the previously unseen photograph. 'Thanks for showing us this picture. Your sister is missed every day,' wrote one person. Another said: 'What a magical picture.' A third added: 'Thank you for showing private moments of your childhood with your beautiful Diana. Then she became the country's most beautiful princess who is so missed.' Charles' post isn't the first time he's delighted royal fans with a photograph of his sister. To mark what would have been her 64th birthday in July, the Earl shared a previously unseen image of the royal that was taken on the occasion of her sixth birthday in 1967. The black-and-white snap posted on Instagram showed Diana enjoying a camel ride at her birthday party. Charles captioned the picture: 'Another July 1st from long ago - 1967, in fact: for Diana's sixth birthday party, my father (standing, left) - to huge excitement - secured the services of Bert the Camel from Peterborough Zoo.' The photo showed the late Earl John Spencer beaming proudly at his youngest daughter Diana, as she flashed a grin at the cameras. Reaction: Commenting on Charles' post, royal fans couldn't hide their delight as they thanked the Earl for sharing the previously unseen photograph Charles's post was flooded with comments from royal fans and well-wishers as they declared the late Princess is 'dearly missed' to this day. 'Happy birthday our precious queen of hearts,' one message read. 'Your soft voice, your unconditional love for people, your grace and elegance is why we will never forget you.' Another person wrote: 'A cherished memory. Your tribute at Althorp helps her live on for all of us.' 'She is absolutely dearly missed,' a third comment read. 'What an inspiration she was and it's unbelievable how much more and more young people relate to her and love her. Her legend and influence keeps growing.' Another noted she looked 'so happy with her siblings and father', while a fifth fan added: 'Happiest birthday in heaven, our beloved Queen! I am still sad you're no longer with us. Eternal rest our lovely Diana.' The post came just days after the Earl shared another Spencer family photo that was taken in 1989 around the time of their father's birthday, when the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry would have been 27. Along with John, the picture featured Charles and Diana's stepmother Raine Spencer, as well as Diana's sisters, Jane and Sarah. They were all stood at the bottom of the stairs of Althorp House, their estate in Northampton that has been in the Spencer family for over 500 years. Captioning the social media post, Charles wrote: 'Trying to remember what this rather formal family photograph was for - it shows my sisters and brothers in law, flanking my father and stepmother, at the base of the main staircase (in the central hallway, known as the Saloon) at Althrop House in the late '80s. 'Perhaps it was something to do with my father's 65th birthday, in January 1989? 'Definitely an '80s air to it all…. I'm always intrigued by interior shots from Althorp's past. Those huge candelabra are no longer on the staircase, and the Saloon's walls are now white.'
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Prince William Just Hit a Major Milestone (With a Nod to Princess Diana)
July 1 isn't just the start of a new month—it also marks a significant day in royal history. It would have been Princess Diana's 64th birthday and members of her family took time to honor her legacy in their own thoughtful ways. Princess Diana's younger brother, Charles Spencer, shared a rare black-and-white snapshot from Diana's sixth birthday. The photo, posted to Instagram, featured kids on a camel and their father nearby, with a sweet caption recalling the moment. 'Another July 1st, from long ago—1967,' he wrote, adding that their father had brought in a camel from a zoo to surprise Diana for her big day. Meanwhile, Prince William chose to celebrate by continuing work on a cause Diana championed during her lifetime: fighting homelessness. On July 1, the Prince of Wales marked the two-year anniversary of Homewards, his Royal Foundation program aimed at ending homelessness across the U.K. The event included a panel discussion with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and entrepreneur Steven Bartlett, both of whom are involved in the initiative. Brown reflected on Diana's influence, noting that she inspired William to care about homelessness from a young age. 'She encouraged him to take an interest in why people were on the streets, and why people were homeless, and why people needed a better chance,' he said, per The Telegraph. Kensington Palace shared highlights from the day on social media, showing William engaging with local leaders and advocates. One post read, 'Marking two years of @homewardsuk… Today is a moment to reflect on progress and focus on the road ahead.' A follow-up video showcased the growing impact of the initiative, with William stating he's 'immensely proud' of the progress so far. It was a quiet but powerful way to mark his mother's birthday—by carrying her legacy forward. Want all the latest entertainment news sent right to your inbox? Click here. I Noticed Something Super Striking About Prince William's Body Language at Recent Royal Outing—and Now I Can't Unsee it
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Charles Spencer Posts Rare Portrait of Grandmother and the Resemblance to Sister Princess Diana Is Uncanny
Family resemblances are nothing new. Maybe a daughter inherits her dad's nose or a son has his mom's eyes—you get the idea. But every once in a while, there's a family resemblance so strong, it stops you in your tracks. That's exactly what's happening with a newly shared portrait of Princess Diana's grandmother, Cynthia Spencer. On July 8, Diana's brother, Charles Spencer, posted a series of black-and-white charcoal portraits to Instagram, writing, 'Close ups of charcoal portraits of my paternal grandparents, Cynthia and Jack Spencer.' According to the caption, the portraits were drawn in 1919, shortly after the couple married. Charles simply credited the artist as 'Sargent,' and while he didn't confirm it outright, many assume it could be the John Singer Sargent, the celebrated portraitist of the time. The standout image in the post is a close-up of their grandmother Cynthia—and the resemblance to Princess Diana is uncanny. From her soft, short hairstyle to her delicate features and expressive eyes, Cynthia could easily pass as Diana's twin. One scroll through the comments and you'll see the internet agrees. 'I can see Diana in your grandmother. So beautiful,' one person wrote. Another added, 'Your grandmother looks just like Diana, gorgeous,' while a third chimed in, 'Wow. Can see where your sisters get their looks from!' But the connection goes deeper than appearances. Charles's caption reflected on Cynthia's character, writing, 'Sargent captures the soft kindness that I will always remember as the essence of my grandmother: though she died when I was 8, she left an indelible impression on me.' Anwar Hussein/WireImage He added that Cynthia was one of the Queen Mother's closest courtiers and was beloved at the family estate in Althorp for her charitable work and down-to-earth nature. Sound familiar? Between the kindness, the elegance and the effortless grace—it's easy to see that Princess Diana didn't just get her grandmother's face. She seemed to inherited her spirit, too. Want all the latest royal news sent right to your inbox? Click here. Prince William Just Hit a Major Milestone (With a Nod to Princess Diana)
Daily Mail
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Charles Spencer marks Diana's birthday with a previously unseen photo of the late Princess of Wales as a smiling six-year-old
Princess Diana 's younger brother has marked what would have been her 64th birthday with a heartfelt tribute to the 'Queen of Hearts'. The former wife of King Charles died on 31 August 1997 from injuries sustained during a car crash in Paris. Diana was 36. On Tuesday, Earl Charles Spencer honoured his sister's memory by sharing a previously unseen photograph of the royal that was taken on the occasion of her sixth birthday on July 1, 1967. The black-and-white snap posted on Instagram showed Diana enjoying a camel ride at her birthday party organised at the family's sprawling estate, Althorp House, in Northampton. Charles captioned the picture: 'Another July 1st from long ago - 1967, in fact: for Diana's sixth birthday party, my father (standing, left) - to huge excitement - secured the services of Bert the Camel from Peterborough Zoo.' The photo showed the late Earl John Spencer beaming proudly at his youngest daughter Diana, as she flashed a grin at the cameras. Charles's post was flooded with comments from royal fans and well-wishers as they declared the late Princess is 'dearly missed' to this day. 'Happy birthday our precious queen of hearts,' one message read. 'Your soft voice, your unconditional love for people, your grace and elegance is why we will never forget you.' The black-and-white snap posted on Instagram showed Diana enjoying a camel ride at her birthday party organised at the family's sprawling estate, Althorp House, in Northampton Another person wrote: 'A cherished memory. Your tribute at Althorp helps her live on for all of us.' 'She is absolutely dearly missed,' a third comment read. 'What an inspiration she was and it's unbelievable how much more and more young people relate to her and love her. 'Her legend and influence keeps growing.' Another noted she looked 'so happy with her siblings and father', while a fifth fan added: 'Happiest birthday in heaven, our beloved Queen! I am still sad you're no longer with us. Eternal rest our lovely Diana.' Charles' latest tribute post comes days after he shared another Spencer family photo that was taken in 1989 around the time of their father's birthday, when the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry would have been 27. Along with John, the picture featured Charles and Diana's stepmother Raine Spencer, as well as Diana's sisters, Jane and Sarah. They were all stood at the bottom of the stairs of Althorp House, their estate in Northampton that has been in the Spencer family for over 500 years. Captioning the social media post, Charles, 60, wrote: 'Trying to remember what this rather formal family photograph was for - it shows my sisters and brothers in law, flanking my father and stepmother, at the base of the main staircase (in the central hallway, known as the Saloon) at Althrop House in the late '80s. Perhaps it was something to do with my father's 65th birthday, in January 1989? 'Definitely an '80s air to it all…. I'm always intrigued by interior shots from Althorp's past. Those huge candelabra are no longer on the staircase, and the Saloon's walls are now white.' The tribute post was shared just a month after relatives of the late Princess mourned her passing during Mental Health Awareness week. Charles, who is three years younger than Diana, appeared on ITV's Loose Men in May - a variant of the channel's daily show Loose Women - to discuss his sister's death. There, he described losing his sister as 'such an amputation' as he reflected on his 'sibling grief'. Charles said: 'It's such an amputation. You grow up with these people, they are your flesh and blood, they're with you forever – and then they're gone.' Describing losing a sibling as 'a really extraordinary thing', Charles recalled how, even years after his sister's untimely death at the age of 36, he would still think to pick up the phone and call her. He said: 'For years after Diana died, I would think, "I must ring her and tell her something," because we shared the same sense of humour.' 'You just realise, of course, that's not going to happen,' he added. While Charles also grew up with two other sisters - Lady Sarah McCorquodale, 70, and Lady Jane Fellowes, 68 - he was much closer in age with Diana, who would have been 63 in May. He said: 'I don't share my childhood with anyone anymore. That's a great loss that you can never really put right.' Charles, who last year published a harrowing account of the abuse he was subjected to at Maidwell Hall prep school, also told fellow panelist Craig Doyle about the responsibility he felt to protect Diana. Despite being only 16 when Diana burst into 'the public light in 1981', Charles was eager to 'get stuck in' and 'deal with the photographers who were plaguing her.' On another occasion, he really did get involved, contacting a journalist who had written 'a really horrendous article' about her himself. He explained: 'I remember just before she died, a female journalist wrote a really horrendous article – because by that stage I don't think that journalist was thinking of Diana as a person.' Charles regretted that Diana had become 'something to make money out of' and wrote an 'outraged letter' to the journalist, which developed into 'a bit of a to and fro'. He concluded: 'I think, particularly as a brother of a sister, you always feel like you want to get stuck in really.' Earl Spencer's parents had five children between 1955 and 1964. Lady Sarah McCorquodale was born in 1955 and Lady Jane Fellowes followed two years later. The couple's third child, John Spencer, died hours after being born in January, 1960. The late Princess Diana was born in 1961 and the youngest, Earl Charles Spencer, was born in 1964. The siblings' father John worked as a royal equerry for both King George VI and the young Queen Elizabeth II, and the family initially rented a home at the royal estate in Sandringham. When Frances and John divorced, the two youngest Spencer siblings lived with their father, who Charles described as 'quiet and a constant source of love' in a 2020 interview with The Sunday Times.
Telegraph
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Take it from me, Harry, it's too late to change your surname, however much you want to
I keep thinking the grievances will end soon. Surely there's no more to come out? Surely we've heard it all by now – in books, in the Netflix series, and in multiple television interviews. But hark, what's this? Another revelation from Montecito. Prince Harry, at one stage of the fallout, apparently discussed changing his name and becoming a Spencer. He talked to his uncle about it, but Charles Spencer counselled against the move, before Harry was advised that the legal issues would be insurmountable. It's a rare moment, these days, that I feel sympathy and kinship with the runaway prince, but I do share some of his anxieties here. In recent years, I've increasingly wondered whether I should start writing under a different name. Not, admittedly, because I've fallen out with my family, moved continents, and now spend my days flying around the globe warning others about global warming. No, my name simply seems to wind up so many people, cause strangers to make so many assumptions about me, and spark such internet grief, that I wonder whether life would be easier if I was something else. Unlike Harry's uncle, my father advised me to change my name when I was starting out. But I was too young, arrogant and determined to listen, and this was 20 or so years ago, when class warfare hadn't quite reached the fever pitch that it has now. I ignored him and have carried on ever since. It's character-building, I've always insisted, through the barbs. Although, last year I was particularly miffed when the best-selling author Kevin Kwan, the writer of Crazy Rich Asians, stuck an airhead journalist called Cosima Money-Coutts in his latest novel. The book had the usual legal disclaimer in the front ('any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental'), but I couldn't help feel that this was a reasonably close resemblance, given that 'Cosima' worked for a posh magazine and I used to work for Tatler. Still, I'll get my own back. I'll name an irritating little berk 'Kevin' in my next book, or maybe an especially yappy dog. So I've stuck with my name, because it is memorable, even if it winds people up. And if I changed it I'd feel fraudulent, like I was running away from something. Now poor Dennis the terrier has been lumbered with the same. When we visit the vet after yet another pavement chicken bone has become lodged inside him, the receptionist says loudly, 'Dennis Money-Coutts?', and there comes the odd titter in the waiting room. It's character-building, I remind him in the car home. If you stopped the average person in the street, I'm not sure they'd know what Prince Harry's surname actually was. Windsor? Mountbatten-Windsor? Wales? He went by Wales at school and for a spell afterwards, I know, because a friend had an excruciating run-in with him over exactly this. It was a shooting weekend, and various 20-something posh boys were joshing one another drunkenly after dinner. 'Wales! Wales!' they kept calling Harry, so my friend, who knew the group less well, decided he could call him that too. 'Wales!' he cried across the table, only for Prince Harry to look up sharply and wag his finger at him. My friend had overstepped the mark – too familiar. A touch of the Prince Andrews about that exchange, I've always felt. If it's a disguise he's after, it's his first name he should worry about. That's the one we really know. How about Prince Larry? Prince Barry? Prince Gary? But it was Spencer he wanted, with one rumour suggesting this was because his wife was particularly keen. I'm not sure how many of you found time to watch it, but in Meghan's most recent television series, she talks determinedly of being Sussex. 'It's so funny you keep saying 'Meghan Markle,'' she admonishes a friend, while demonstrating how to make a sandwich, although she doesn't sound like she finds it very funny at all; 'You know I'm Sussex now.' Except 'Spencer' would bring her closer to Diana, says a source, which is what she really wants. A friend of mine who is a Spencer (no relation to Charles) says her American colleagues constantly ask whether she's related to Diana, so perhaps the idea that this is what people would assume isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Although, my friend is half-Korean, so I love the idea that her colleagues are trying to work her into the Althorp family tree. Unfortunately, the change would also make Harry and Meghan's daughter Lilibet Diana Spencer, and is that a good name to saddle a small girl with? I'm also just not sure Meghan would want to be plain old Meghan Spencer. What, no dukedom? The trouble is, for Harry, that while he may want to change his name, it wouldn't change who he is. Symbolic, yes, and another potential wedge driven between him and his father and brother. Maybe, for a spell, it would make him feel angry relief at putting another bollard between them. Not content with moving 5,000 miles away, he'll cast off their name, too. More and more Shakespearean by the day. 'Presume not that I am the thing I was,' and all that. But just as I'd be the same, writing the same jokes about dogs and posh matters, albeit in disguise as Sophie Cash-Natwest (or something terrifically cryptic like that), so would he. Prince Harry, or Harry Spencer, once the boy that everyone had such a soft spot for; now, still, so furious at everyone's behaviour but his own. More grown-up, more sensible to stick with what you have already, Harry. That's what I always tell myself, anyway.
