“I want to speak on Diana’s behalf and do so in an openly positive way.”
Britain’s Princess Diana poses during her visit to Footscray Park in a suburb of Melbourne on January 27, 1988. Photo / Patrick Riverie, AFP
After Diana was killed in a Paris car crash in August 1997, Spencer gave an emotional eulogy at her funeral in Westminster Abbey, London, vowing to always look out for her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.
Thirty years on, Diana remains an iconic figure, but Harry and William, now heir to the UK throne, are no longer speaking amid a major rift in the royal family.
“The aim of this book is to tell the truth about Diana from her brother’s perspective,” Spencer said.
Spencer, 62, has remained close to the two princes, and Harry, his wife Meghan and their two young children reportedly visited the earl’s ancestral home at Althorp, central England, last month, where they were said to have visited Diana’s grave.
Spencer added he hoped his book would interest those who “cherish” her memory and appeal to “those too young to remember her in her heyday”.
He wanted to leave readers with the impression of who she really was “a one-off, dynamic character, full of love, charisma and self-doubt, who gave life a hell of a go, and left the world a far better place”.
Publisher Daniel Bunyard said it was “a book of historic importance” recounting the “story of one of the twentieth century’s most iconic and culturally significant figures”.
– AFP