Charles Spencer shares rare childhood photo with sister Princess Diana
On March 2, Charles Spencer shared on Instagram* a black and white photo from his home archive, taken in 1967. In the photo, five-year-old Princess Diana, Charles and their mother Frances Shand Kydd pose on a swing at the family estate of Althorp.
"I love how happy we are. I'm three years old here, and Diana is 5 or 6 years old. Mom called me 'Buzz' back then - because she saw endless energy in me, like a happy and busy bee," he wrote under the photo .
In addition to Diana and Charles, the family of John Spencer and Frances Roche had two children - the eldest daughters Sarah and Jane. When Diana was eight years old, her mother left her father, who abused her, for another man. Despite this, the court decided to leave the children with their father.
Speaking to People in 2017, two decades after Diana's death, he said there were "a lot of myths" about the princess's childhood: "First of all, none of us ever called her 'Di' at home. Plus, how Earl Spencer asserted that she was never shy: “Diana had her own mind and always behaved very reservedly with new people at first... She assessed the interlocutor before reacting to his words. This is actually not shyness, but ingenuity,” said Charles.