Charles Spencer
@cspencer1508
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@Althorphouse is home. Nonfiction author. My childhood memoir ‘A Very Private School’ is out now as paperback & audiobook. @FT columnist. FRHistS, FSA, & FRSA
Joined August 2014
Today, for the third time, a ‘paper has been forced by the Law to apologise for lying about me “depriving Diana of a home”. The guilty journalist this time? Janice Turner - aka @VictoriaPeckham of @thetimes .Yellow journalism.
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50 years ago tonight, I spent my first ever night away from my family. I was 8, & I’d been sent away to boarding school. It was part of a family tradition. 12 September 1972 has been with me ever since. I have 7 children. None of them have been forced to go to boarding school.
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Surprised to hear that Donald Trump is apparently claiming that my late sister Diana wanted to “kiss his arse”, since the one time she mentioned him to me - when he was using her good name to sell some real estate inNew York - she clearly viewed him as worse than an anal fissure.
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New puppy pretty pleased with itself for retrieving a third slipper for his growing collection.
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Wearing these at Windsor today, with great sadness and pride.
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It takes an enormous amount of guts to take on opponents like News Group Newspapers, and great tenacity to win. And it’s just wonderful that Harry fought for - and gained - an apology to his mother. She would be incredibly touched at that, & rightly proud.
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Incredible strength and poise.
A message from Catherine, The Princess of Wales
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What an astonishing man - I didn’t know 98% of this about Keanu Reeves.
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I hope my father would have approved that I wore his Royal Scots Greys regimental cufflinks at the moving celebration of 10 years of @WeAreInvictus at @StPaulsLondon yesterday.
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I’d like to thank the TV journalist Andy Webb for his tireless professionalism in bringing the Bashir-Panorama-BBC scandal to light. If he hadn’t have pursued this story for well over a decade, and shared his findings with me last October, today’s findings wouldn’t have surfaced.
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Pathetic, @amandajplatell - you have no shame, and even less credibility. Last time I heard from you, you were guilty of libelling me, as your employer at @DailyMailUK agreed. Now you’re put up (by them?) to misrepresent significant legal evidence as if it was something trivial.
Is Harry still obsessed with former love Chelsy Davy?. Harry mentions her 118 times in court evidence, Meghan just five times. No wonder Meg’s didn’t show up!
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Probably the most astonishingly beautiful gift I’ve ever received: I found this canoe, handmade by a friend over many months, by the lake at @AlthorpHouse - “something for you to visit your sister in”, he said. Out of words, I could only cry at the beauty of that thought.
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Of all the true and wonderful things that were said about Her Majesty the Queen today this, for me, rang truest, and will stay with me for the longest:
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87 years ago today, in the small Norfolk parish of Sandringham, my mother was born - on the exact same day that, a few hundred yards away, King George V died. My mother would later give birth to two of her five children in Park House, the place where she was born. Greatly missed.
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20 years ago today President Mandela visited @AlthorpHouse to pay his respects at my sister’s grave. He planted an oak that will stand as a timeless memorial to the honour of a visit by this truly great man. (We had Malay curry for lunch - one of his favourite dishes.)
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Dear old Otis, who many at Althorp have kindly described today as a “living legend”, went downhill fast yesterday, after being diagnosed with cancer. He was put to sleep last night. He nearly made it to 13. He will join his grandmother, Ella, and father, Karoo, in the Park here.
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Love the family photographs I find here at Althorp. My grandfather (left), my great-aunt Lavinia (middle) and my great-uncle Cecil, about to set off for a fancy dress party in c.1902.
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Althorp in December light - perfectly framed by an avenue of trees running north to south across the Park.
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Some of the flowers kindly brought to @AlthorpHouse last month, when the House and Grounds were open.
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Just found this wonderfully formal photograph of Queen Mary visiting @AlthorpHouse in the 1930s - with my grandparents seated either side, my aunt Anne at the back, and my father (with his dog) front right. A different age….
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Black and white photography proves so evocative when capturing the funeral of George VI, 70 years ago. Here my 28-year-old father marches beside the king’s coffin on its journey to @wabbey
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Today is All Souls Day (aka The Day of the Dead) - a time to remember with love those who’ve departed. A deeply poignant photograph for me from 1989, during a party at Althorp to celebrate my father’s 65th birthday. Both hugely missed. (Photo copyright: John Roan.)
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75th birthday dinner at @AlthorpHouse for a fabulous lady who’s one of my greatest, kindest and wisest friends.
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Remembering my mother, who died aged just 68 - 20 years ago today.
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Thanks for forwarding this: it was late 1980, I was 16, & my sister was taking me out from @Eton_College for lunch in @HindsHeadBray Her Mini Metro was followed by 12 cars & 1 motorbike of tabloid journalists. Enough to make any teenager look as disdainful as Morrissey, frankly.
That time Diana and her brother looked like they were on the cover of a Smiths album. So cool.
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What a treat to welcome 350 members of the Rock Choir to @AlthorpHouse today - recording a charity single for the wonderful @DianaAward The Diana Award was set up 25 years ago to continue my sister’s legacy of care and hope among young people all over the world.
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Old-fashioned tulips. I love the more commercial kind, too - but we grow these at Althorp, and they have extra charm (for me) as a result.
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I don���t normally bore people about my children, but forgive me for being so very proud of my son, Ned, who got his A level results today: they were much better than his school predicted, and they mean he goes to his first choice of university. A reward for proper hard work. 🥇.
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Went to a charity event today to honour the late Duke of Edinburgh’s commitment to wildlife and the countryside. Amazingly imaginative pudding plate for all of us guests, bringing to an end a memorable day in the grounds of Sandringham House.
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Buried my wonderful old Lab’s ashes in the Park at Althorp today - the handsome stone carved by BB, who’s worked at Althorp for more than 60 years.
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One of my @AlthorpHouse photographs, from a year ago. The thin clear light of a winter’s day.
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Lavender lending a vibrant pop of colour to the west side of @AlthorpHouse this morning.
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Marking the end of the year, Victorian-style - the dance card of my young great-great aunt, from 1865….
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Sunlight breaking through the shadow of the tall trees that stand round the Oval, this morning.
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This morning - the @AlthorpHouse team so kindly giving me an oak bench on my 60th birthday. Such a lovely act of generosity and kindness, with Althorp’s Conservation Manager (who’s been here 35 years) giving a lovely speech on behalf of his colleagues.
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The Queen arriving at Kettering Railway Station, Northamptonshire, in July 1965, with my uniformed grandfather delighted to greet her at the start of her visit to the county.
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Today’s Mothers Day in the UK - a time to celebrate mothers, wherever they may be now.
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November light down by the Round Oval lake at @althorphouse - a photograph I took 2 years ago.
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My first family duty on 31 August. Never forgotten.
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The final moments of George VI’s funeral procession in Windsor Castle, back in February 1952. Hard to imagine how Britain will feel tomorrow when similar rites happen, marking the final journey of their great queen.
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7 o’clock this morning - the old clock striking just now in Althorp’s Stable Block.
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50 years ago today, there was a magnificent celebration of the Queen and Prince Philip’s Silver Wedding, at @wabbey I wrote a report on the day for my school’s annual magazine, and I concluded with: “I think I was the youngest boy at the service”.
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Tim the Peacock, his three wives, and their bevy of young - the first time I’ve seen them all together. A magnificent sight - and how clever of the mothers to have protected so many young from predators while they were at their most vulnerable.
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Through the archway of the Stables to the beauty of the morning beyond.
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Just had confirmation that this extraordinarily beautiful oak in Althorp Park is 750 years old - meaning it was here more than two centuries before my family first grazed sheep here, in 1486.
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The Queen & Prince Philip greeted by a huge crowd in Australia during their triumphant 1953-54 Commonwealth Tour. My father - who was HM’s Equerry then - sits in front of them in the Land Rover, next to the driver.
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Found myself inadvertently on this walk today. “Poignant” is the word, I guess - particularly on the day before Diana’s birthday.
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A photograph I was lucky enough to take at @althorphouse exactly three years ago - Nature’s piercing beauty.
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My elder son, Louis, graduated with a First from @ArtsEdLondon today. He gave a truly thoughtful, eloquent, funny & generous speech as his class’s valedictorian. Wishing all 80 in his year happiness & success in the years ahead, on stage and screen - & Congratulations!
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Happy Fathers Day, to fathers everywhere…. I really love this portrait of my father (painted posthumously by Paul Blason) because it captures his gentleness and humour; and because it’s the only portrait at @AlthorpHouse where the sitter is smiling….
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A slightly foggy Christmas morning at @AlthorpHouse - but wishing you all the happiest of Christmases!
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A corner of Althorp’s Deer Park, this afternoon. The black fallow herd has been here for nearly 500 years. Such beauties.
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John Spencer, my father, who died 30 years ago aged 68.
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