Woman Who Hired Princess Diana As a Nanny Recalls How She Was During Her Teenage Years

Lady Diana Spencer led an ordinary life before transforming into the glamourous Princess of Wales. Prior to being engaged, Diana performed odd jobs as a nanny, cook, and kindergarten teacher's assistant, making her the first royal bride to have a paying job. A 2021 CNN documentary titled Diana chronicled her early life and also spoke with one of her employers. Lady Spencer had "no world experience," according to American businesswoman Mary Robertson, who hired her in 1980 as a nanny for her infant son Patrick while the family was residing in London. 

As per the Daily Mail, in reference to the future princess, Robertson stated that she initially thought Diana was a "shy" and "very tactile" teenager. "When Diana came to me as a shy 18-year-old babysitter, she'd had very little world experience - none at all - and she was just wonderful with Patrick," the American said. "She sat on the floor with him and she was totally focused on him," Robertson added. Following their initial meeting, Diana was hired for a three-day-a-week job that paid only $5 per hour. Robertson confessed that she was unaware of Diana's royal lineage when they first met and that she was seeing Prince Charles, the future king.

Robertson was surprised to notice the paparazzi outside her house within a few months that is when she learned about the royal alliance. Diana apparently warned her employer about the waiting photographers. "When you leave for work this morning, there are reporters and photographers at the end of the street,"' Robertson recalled Lady Spencer telling her. 'I asked, "Who are they there for?" She said, "They are there for me." However, the American businesswoman commended the prospective princess, stating that despite her upcoming royal ties, she remained composed and a trustworthy young lady. 

"One of her strongest characteristics was she was very tactile, she wanted to hug people, reach out at touch them," Robertson recounted. "That basic warm, trusting, loving, caring personality was always there." Robertson remembered that even when the Princess of Wales quit her position and relocated to Buckingham Palace before the royal wedding, they remained close. The businesswomen corresponded with Diana for 16 years until her untimely death in 1997.

'We continued a correspondence for the next 16 years,' Robertson revealed. She added that she received numerous letters and cards from Diana, including one requesting that the family visit her. The American, regrettably, described Diana's funeral at Westminster Abbey as the "saddest, most painful hour" of her life. The Diana docuseries included interviews with a range of individuals who knew or worked with the late princess, such as friends, royal specialists, and journalists who interviewed her throughout the years. 

As per People, journalist Angela Rippon who interviewed Princess Diana right after her wedding recalled in the documentary that the princess was never going to fit into the royal mold. "There was something more to Diana," Rippon said, "something that was not the marshmallow or the Play-Doh that was going to be molded into what they [the royals] wanted." She concluded, "Running through all of it was a backbone, a knowledge of her own self."