When Princess Diana whacked Prince William

The notion that the late Princess Diana was a shy or hesitant person made Nanny Janet Thompson laugh because she didn't agree with how the media described the mother of Prince William and Prince Harry.

In his 1993 book "Diana Vs Charles", author James Whitaker quoted Thompson as saying, "Diana could not be called a difficult child but she could be obstinate." 

Recalling her childhood, she said, "Even in those days she knew what she wanted and how she wanted thinks done—she wouldn't necessarily go along with what you would tell her, and she never did anything straight away. She would think about what you had asked her and then slowly do it."

About how the then Princess of Wales treated her own children, the author revealed that he once saw Diana whacking William at the end of a sports day at Wetherby school.

He wrote, "The Princess, who has been known to smack her own children on occasion was never subjected to corporal punishment by Nanny Thompson. She said "I just don't believe in it."  "So when Diana really misbehaved she would be sent to her room to think things over."

Writing about Diana's relationship with her younger brother Charles Spencer, he noted, she was devoted to her baby brother and "loved mothering him, a habit which continued into adulthood when she would regularly drive to Eton when he was a pupil there to take him out to lunch."

Diana, who got married to the then Prince of Wales, Prince Charles in 1981, died in a car crash in 1997 at the age of 37.

She had two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, with Charles before the couple separated in December 1992.