Peter Shand Kydd

Peter Shand Kydd, who died 23 March, 2006, was the step-father of Diana Princess of Wales.

He was a son of Norman Shand Kydd, a member of a wealthy wallpaper manufacturing family (who were said to have invented flock wallpaper), of Horton Hall, Buckinghamshire. His half-brother Bill was the gambler, horseman and playboy chum of the missing Earl of Lucan. (Bill wed Christina Duncan sister of Lucan's wife)

He married firstly, Janet Munro Kerr, scion of a Glasgow shipping family, and a granddaughter of John Martin Munro Kerr (1868-1960) a leading gynaecologist. Peter left his wife and three children, Angela, Adam and Johnnie, to marry Diana's mother, the then Viscountess Althorp, after an affair which saw her leave her family, when Diana Spencer was only seven.

Shand Kydd's second marriage - in 1969 - followed an unpleasant court case in 1968 in which Viscount Althorp obtained custody of his children, and it was noted that Lady Fermoy (Frances Althorp's mother) took his side against her daughter, whom she considered to be a bolter. Thereafter the young Spencer children had a disorganised upbringing. This was further complicated when their father inherited the earldom and the estate of Althorp in 1975, and soon afterwards married the Countess of Dartmouth (Raine, the daughter of Barbara Cartland).

Shand Kydd and Frances divorced in 1990, nine years after Frances's daughter had become wife of the heir to the throne.

He leaves a daughter Angela, wife of David de Pass, and a son, Johnnie, a photographer. Another son, Adam, a writer, died from a suspected drug overdose in Camodia in 2004.

The funeral service will be held at St. Peter and St. Paul Church, Aldeburgh on Thursday 6 April, 2006.


Source: Daily Telegraph 30 Mar 2006

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