According to Spencer, Diana’s relationship with Khan had become serious enough for her to imagine a future outside Britain.
After her divorce from then-Prince Charles, she was no longer living within the restrictions of royal life. But Spencer writes that England had become increasingly difficult for her, particularly because of the relentless attention from the press.
South Africa appeared to offer something very different.
Spencer writes that Diana had a “naïve yet impossible” dream of moving there with Khan. The idea was not simply to spend a few months away from Britain. She was imagining an entirely different life.
As Spencer recalls it, Diana wondered whether the two of them could move to South Africa together and “carve out a life”.
She had even thought about how Khan could continue his career there. Spencer writes that she hoped the heart surgeon could work at a hospital in Cape Town, while the couple could live nearby.
The appeal, he suggests, was the possibility of something Diana had struggled to have for years: privacy and normality.
Spencer describes Diana imagining that they could live “happily – normally” near him in South Africa.
For someone who had spent much of her adult life under the gaze of photographers, the idea of disappearing somewhere else with the man she loved must have held a particular attraction.
