Last month we promised that we would try to discover whether Charles Spencer’s much-anticipated book about his sister, Princess Diana, contained any details about her years at West Heath.

Well, we have to admit that we still don’t have the answer!

Swan Song: Diana, My Sister was finally published on September 22, almost 30 years after Diana’s death, and since then attention has been concentrated almost entirely on other chapters of Diana’s life.

So far, we have not been able to establish whether Charles Spencer provides any new recollections of his sister’s time at the school, partly because of the sheer volume of material from the book that has been generating headlines.

There has, however, been an unexpected revelation in the book involving Mohamed Al-Fayed, who purchased the West Heath estate in May 1998, nine months after the death of Princess Diana and his son Dodi in a road accident in Paris on 31 August 1997 – the same day that the original West Heath School officially closed its doors.

Al-Fayed subsequently agreed to lease the estate to the charity behind the new school, which specialises in helping children whose mainstream education has broken down for a variety of reasons.

Charles Spencer claims in the book that Diana told him that Al-Fayed had behaved inappropriately towards her early in her relationship with his son, Dodi Fayed.

According to Spencer’s account, Diana told him that Al-Fayed had approached her, touched and squeezed her buttocks, and made a sexually suggestive remark. He says Diana recounted the incident to him with revulsion.

The allegation is noteworthy given that, since Al-Fayed’s death in 2023, 154 people have come forward directly to the Metropolitan Police with allegations concerning sexual offences by him. The Metropolitan Police has been investigating allegations relating to Al-Fayed, including whether others may have facilitated or enabled offending.

These later allegations do not, of course, independently establish that the incident described by Spencer occurred. His account is based on what he says Diana told him.

The book has produced a disagreement involving former newspaper editor Piers Morgan. In the book, Spencer suggested that Morgan was responsible for the publication of intrusive photographs of Diana taken in a gym in 1993.

Morgan was not working for the Daily Mirror group at the time – he was working for The Sun – and Spencer subsequently apologised for what he acknowledged was an incorrect assumption. Morgan has indicated that he intends to pursue the matter legally.

With so much of the book generating headlines, the relatively simple question that interests those connected with West Heath has been overshadowed.

We haven’t given up on finding out.

The book itself is 384 pages long, and its publisher describes it as the most intimate account yet of Diana’s life from the perspective of her younger brother. Its early chapters cover their childhood and school years, so there is certainly plenty of scope for his recollections of Diana as a young girl.

For the moment, however, we don’t want to speculate or repeat something simply because it has appeared elsewhere. We would much rather be certain that anything we report to Old Girls about West Heath actually comes from the book.

So, watch this space!