Peter Shand Kydd was the former stepfather of Diana, Princess of Wales

Diana, Princess of Wales

Diana, Princess of Wales was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, whom she married on 29 July 1981, and an international charity and fundraising figure, as well as a preeminent celebrity of the late 20th century...

 and an heir to the wallpaper fortune built by his father Norman Shand Kydd. He was half-brother to the former champion amateur jockey William (Bill) Shand Kydd.

Shand Kydd sold the family business in 1962 and moved his family to Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, where he became a sheep farmer. After selling the sheep farm and returning to England, Peter Shand Kydd began an affair with Diana's mother Viscountess Althorp

Frances Shand Kydd

Frances Ruth Shand Kydd was the first wife of John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer and the mother of Diana, Princess of Wales...

, while married to his first wife, Janet Munro Kerr. After divorce

Divorce

Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...

 proceedings were finalized for both Shand Kydd and the Viscountess, they were married on 2 May 1969 and lived in Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....

 and Aldwick

Aldwick

Aldwick is a civil parish in the Arun district of West Sussex, England, and is part of the built-up area around Bognor Regis, to the west of the town. The parish includes Rose Green and occupies an area of , and has a population of 10,884 persons.It became, briefly, the focus of the British Empire...

, West Sussex

West Sussex

West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...

, finally settling on a 1,000 acre (4 km²) farm on the remote Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 island of Seil

Seil

One of the Slate Islands, Seil is a small island on the east side of the Firth of Lorn, southwest of Oban, in Scotland.Seil has been linked to the Scottish mainland since 1792 when the Clachan Bridge was built by engineer Robert Mylne...

. Their marriage faltered and Shand Kydd had an affair with Marie-Pierre Becret Palmer who ran a champagne-importing business in London. Shand Kydd married Marie-Pierre in 1993 and their relationship lasted until April 1995. Afterwards he chose to live close to his first wife Janet.

By his first wife, Shand Kydd had three children. Their elder son, Adam, was born in 1954 and became a novelist ("Happy Trails"), before dying in Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is the capital and largest city of Cambodia. Located on the banks of the Mekong River, Phnom Penh has been the national capital since the French colonized Cambodia, and has grown to become the nation's center of economic and industrial activities, as well as the center of security,...

, Cambodia

Cambodia

Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...

, in 2004, of a suspected drug overdose

Drug overdose

The term drug overdose describes the ingestion or application of a drug or other substance in quantities greater than are recommended or generally practiced...

. Shand Kydd's younger son, John Shand Kydd

John Shand Kydd

John "Johnnie" Shand Kydd is the youngest son of Peter Shand Kydd and Janet Munro Kerr. He is stepbrother to Diana, Princess of Wales...

, known as Johnnie, was born in 1959, and is a renowned photographer, with more than 70 works in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

Peter Shand Kydd died on 23 March 2006, at the age of eighty, and was buried on 6 April 2006 in Aldeburgh

Aldeburgh

Aldeburgh is a coastal town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. Located on the River Alde, the town is notable for its Blue Flag shingle beach and fisherman huts where freshly caught fish are sold daily, and the Aldeburgh Yacht Club...

, Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

.