Chapter 5 5. The days at school

The Hillfield Primary School where Diana first studied was filled with a warm family atmosphere. Class sizes are small, teachers are generous, and students are rewarded for success in reading, writing, or drawing.Outside the classroom there is a tennis court, a sandpit, a lawn for playing tennis and baseball, and a garden.Diana is quiet and shy, not used to the hustle and bustle of school life.However, her friend Alexandra Lloyd and her inseparable, each other's company. Maybe it is really 3 years old to see 8 years old, and 8 years old to see old.Little Diana has shown her strengths and weaknesses.While Diana struggled to learn "Multiplication Tables" and the "Janet and John" series of books, his younger brother Charlie excelled in school and was like a fish in water.The sharp contrast made her jealous of her brilliant brother. "How I wish I could do as well academically as he did," she said.Among siblings, quarrels and fights are inevitable.Diana, who is older and stronger, is naturally the winner.Charlie could only complain, but he soon discovered that he could stab her with sharp words.Parents had to stop him from calling his sister "Brian."This was the name of a slow-moving, mentally retarded snail in the then-popular children's TV show "Magic Carousel."

At the age of 9, her father transferred her to another school --- Redes Hawes boarding school.The school is only a 2-hour drive from Parker Manor.Her initial reaction was annoyed and defiant.She is 9 years old and can feel her father's pain.She is charitable and considerate of others by nature, and she loves her father even more when he tells her a piece of his life.But in her heart, her father sent her away from home to go to school, and sent her younger brother to another strange school, which was obviously an abandonment of them.She once threatened her father: "If you loved me, you wouldn't leave me here." Her father patiently explained to her the benefits of going to this school: learning ballet, swimming, horse riding, and a place to store her beloved animals—— — guinea pigs.This animal once won first place in the veterinary category at the Sandringham Show. "Maybe it's because he was the only guinea pig at the show," Diana said wryly.The guinea pig later won the Patmer Cup at the school's Animal Corner event.

Her father left her alone at school.She's leaning against a Day Spencer suitcase, clutching her favorite green hippopotamus and pinata.Later, with a deep sense of loss, the father said: "It was a terrible and sad day. I seemed to lose her." A good photographer who took a picture of Diana before she left for school.The picture shows a cute, shy, energetic little girl, wearing a dark red top and a gray school uniform skirt.Little Diana also wrote him a note asking for "large chocolate bars, cakes, ginger biscuits and lollipops". Diana quickly fell in love with the school, which struggled to make its 120 female students feel at home.In the first semester, Diana was quiet and reserved; she liked to fight, joke, and didn't like to read books.She is shy and avoids being the center of attention.In class, Diana never yelled to answer questions, and she never volunteered to stand up and read the text aloud.In her first school play, she played a doll, a role she agreed to play because she didn't have a single line.

Diana was a popular companion, enthusiastic about school activities and represented the halls in swimming and tennis.But something inside of her was telling her to separate from the crowd.This intuition told her that in her life, in her own words: "I will walk a road full of twists and turns. I always feel that I am distant from everyone. I have always known that I will go to another road, in a different place." in an environment." In the fall of 1972, Diana was devastated when her grandmother, the Countess Spencer, died of a brain tumor.Her grandmother has looked after her lovingly since her parents divorced.This cordial feeling makes the two sides depend on each other.She joined the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret for her grandmother's funeral in the Chapel Royal at St James's Palace.Countess Spencer held an irreplaceable place in Diana's heart, and she devoutly believed that her grandmother still watched over her in the world of spirits.

She then sat the public entrance examination, following in the footsteps of her sisters, and entered West Heath boarding school in Kent.Founded in 1865, the school focuses not only on academic achievement but also on the development of "character and confidence". Sister Sarah was very beautiful when she was in school.She excelled in grades, competed in horse racing and swimming as a member of the school team, and starred in school plays.Sarah wants to be the best in everything, and her competitive personality makes her the most lawless and unruly girl in the school. Her older sister, Jenny, has a high IQ, does well in exams, and captains the school hockey team.She is reasonable, wise and independent.When Diana was admitted, she was already the head of the sixth grade.

In the office, the teachers could not help but speculate which of her sisters the newcomer Diana was more like, Sarah Jane? In terms of academic performance, she is definitely an outlier among the Spencer children.She took five O-level tests in English literature, language, history, geography, and art, but all of them were "red lights"; she failed the make-up exam again.Diana herself admitted: "I can't do anything well, I am disappointed in myself, I feel that I am a person walking behind others." Her hobby at that time was to read some novels, and her favorite was "People Who Are Not Crazy Enough".Judging from these books, this gentle and sweet girl has a different power in her heart.

Diana's strengths lie elsewhere.She is an all-round athlete and has won the school swimming and diving championship for 4 consecutive years.She dived almost without any splash, which made the audience applaud. This skill is called "Diana's trick".She is also the captain of the girls basketball team and is a strong player in tennis.But Diana was still no match for her two older sisters, who loved sports, and her mother, who was an "all-around champion" at school and captained almost every team.Had it not been for the bout of appendicitis, he would have played Junior Wimbledon.Diana's achievements in learning the piano were also overshadowed by her grandmother and sister Sarah.Her grandmother played the piano for the Queen at the Royal Albert Memorial; her older sister Sarah also majored in piano at the Vienna Conservatory of Music after leaving West Heath Girls' School.

Diana loved ballet and aspired to be a ballet dancer, but her 5ft 10in figure was too big for a professional ballet dancer. She watched "Swan Lake" at least 4 times. Diana often got up secretly in the middle of the night and sneaked into the school's new performance hall to practice.Dancing can make her temporarily forget all troubles.Accompanied by the music of the record player, she can dance for hours at a stretch. After hard training, at the end of the spring semester in 1976, Diana won the first place in the school dance competition.On the eve of the wedding, she invited her former dance teacher Wendy Michel and pianist Lily Snipe to Kensington Palace to teach herself dance.For her, it relieved the tension and stress ahead of the big wedding.

After the family moved to Althorp in 1975, Diana had an ideal place to practice dancing.In the summer, she practiced ballet moves on the sandstone balustrade of her house; after the guests left, she danced under portraits of her illustrious ancestors in the black and white marble of Udon Hall.She refused to dance in public, and her brother and servants took turns peeping through the keyhole to watch her practice in her black training suit.Charlie said: "We all thought she danced really well." In West Heath School, one of Diana's great achievements was to meet her lifelong best friend --- Caroline Pride, now Caroline Rosselomew.Her bed was next to Diana's at school, and she later shared a flat with her in London.As she recalls, Diana "had a strong personality, lively and boisterous".

Caroline and Diana became confidants as soon as they met because their parents were both divorced. "It didn't affect us much, we weren't sitting in a corner crying," Caroline said.But in the memory of other students, Diana was "introverted and depressed" and never showed her feelings. After graduating from West Heath School, Diana entered an expensive etiquette intensive school in Switzerland --- Weidi Manette Alpine College to study home economics, clothing and cooking.In this school that cultivates the good qualities of noble ladies, the only thing she learns is skiing.According to the regulations, she should speak French all day long, and she is not allowed to speak other languages.But she and her friend Sophie Kimball speak English all the time.She wrote dozens of letters asking her parents to take her home.Her parents finally relented when she argued that they were wasting money.

The year she dropped out of school, Diana was only 16 years old and had neither a diploma nor skills.How will she maintain her life in the future? She can't say that she can't do anything in school, at least she has a skill, far surpassing her mother and other relatives.That is her compassionate heart.