A life of tragedy and difficulty
13 April 2012
Frances Shand Kydd, the mother of Diana, Princess of Wales, cut an intriguing figure.
Living alone on a remote Scottish island, the reclusive grandmother to Princes William and Harry faced tragedy and difficulty throughout her life:
- She endured the death of not just one, but two of her children - famously, Diana in a car crash in Paris, but also a baby son who died hours after he was born. Just a few weeks ago, her stepson Adam Shand Kydd, who was 49, died of an apparent overdose in Cambodia.
- She was twice divorced - first leaving her husband for a married man and then being deserted herself. She was dubbed an unfit mother and "the bolter", lost custody of her children, was convicted of drink-driving. In the months leading up to the Princess's death, the pair were not on speaking terms.
- Her mother Lady Ruth Fermoy was a confidante and lady in waiting to the Queen Mother, and was later said to have had a hand in sowing the seeds of Prince Charles's marriage to Diana. Her father Maurice was, as a close friend of George VI, also a member of the royals' inner circle, as well as being the Conservative MP for King's Lynn.
- In 1984, tragedy struck again when Shand Kydd's troubled younger brother Edmund committed suicide and then, shortly after, her former brother-in-law the Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry was killed in the IRA bombing in Brighton.
- She faced public shame in 1996 when she was convicted of drink driving and was banned from the roads for a year.
- Much to her distress, she was not permitted to tell anyone Diana had died for an hour, nor invited to collect her body from Paris, nor asked to identify her daughter. She resolved to grieve in private and found it difficult to cope with what she saw as the commercial exploitation of her daughter's death
- After Diana's death, Shand Kydd returned to her protected life alone on Seil.She continuing her charity work which included supporting the Mallaig and Northwest Fishermen's Association, comforting families of fishermen lost at sea.
