Princess Diana's early years unveiled in rare family snapshot
- By Maria Lopez -
- Jul 08, 2026
LONDON – Earl Charles Spencer treated royal followers all over the world to an incredibly poignant moment by posting a childhood family photo with his sister Princess Diana online.
Charles, the 9th Earl Spencer, shared the black and white family snapshot of himself and his deceased sister playing outdoors before Diana was catapulted to superstardom as “The People’s Princess” over six decades ago.
In the photograph, a much younger Charles and Diana play around a swing set in the backyard. Charles is looking down from the swing set as his cheerful sister grips the sides of the swings next to him. The two appear to be a happy brother and sister.
The picture shows them during the late 1960s and seems to date from their early years. Diana and Charles grew up largely at their ancestral home, Althorp, but prior to that, they spent their toddler years at Park House on Queen Elizabeth II’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk. Diana Frances Spencer was born the youngest daughter of Viscount Althorp Edward John Spencer and Frances Ruth Burke Roche.
While her subsequent parents’ widely publicised divorce would have been a complicated and difficult situation for the young Diana, who was sent between Norfolk, London and Scotland, moments captured like these speak of the loving bond she and her brother maintained through tough times.
She had relatively low-key early years before marrying now-King Charles III in a July 1981 state wedding when he was still Prince Charles. Following her studies at a private boarding school in Kent and finishing school in Switzerland, Diana eventually returned to London and took a position as a kindergarten teacher in the Young England school in Pimlico.
Tragically, the Princess was killed in a horrific automobile accident in Paris in August 1997 and when her two boys Prince William and Prince Harry were young teenagers. After many decades have gone by, Diana is still loved for all that she stood for, particularly the breaking down of the social stigma that surrounded HIV andAIDS, landmines and leprosy.
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Charles Spencer shares moments such as these, reminding the world of the jovial young girl that the ‘People’s Princess’ was before the world came to know and adore her.