GETTY / EPA Raine Spencer died aged 87, was the stepmother of Princess Diana In real life, however, Raine, Countess Spencer, who died at her London home yesterday aged 87 after a short

illness, was a more complicated character than that.  Nicknamed “Acid Raine” by Diana and her siblings when she married their father, Earl Spencer, the high society hostess, famed for her

bouffant hair, pearls, and clipped accent, was initially unpopular with her stepchildren.  But as the years wore on she won over many of her critics and eventually even earned the love and

respect of Diana.  RELATED ARTICLES Her death was announced yesterday by her son William Legge, the Earl of Dartmouth and a Ukip MEP. Born Raine McCorquodale in 1929, she was the only child

politician George Sutherland Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland.  In an eventful life, Raine amassed a collection of aristocratic titles from her marriages to high society men.  GETTY

Nicknamed "Acid Raine" by Diana, died at her London home yesterday She was at various times Comtesse Jean-François Pineton de Chambrun, Lady Dartmouth and Lady Lewisham as well as

Countess Spencer.  She was launched as a debutante at 18 in 1947 and after a successful season in which she was named Deb of the Year, she quickly became engaged to the Hon Gerald Humphry

Legge, the heir to an earldom.  They were married in 1948 and had four children.  > Raine, you have been extremely kind and patient with all this and > consequently I just wanted you 

to know how grateful I am >  > Princess Diana In 1962, he came the 9th Earl of Dartmouth. She soon took an interest in politics and spent 17 years as a Conservative councillor after

becoming the youngest member of Westminster City Council at the age of 23.  In the early 1970s she met Diana’s father, Johnnie Spencer, Lord Althorp, and they wed in 1976, a year after he

became Earl Spencer.  His wife, Frances, had left him several years earlier but Raine broke up her own 29-year marriage to be with Diana’s father.  EPA Her death was announced yesterday by

her son William Legge, the Earl of Darmouth and a Ukip MEP When Raine set about modernising the family’s ancestral home, Althorp, in Northamptonshire, the simmering resentment that Diana and

her siblings, Sarah, Jane, and Charles felt came to the boil.  She installed central heating and threw it open for events but they saw it as a betrayal, the cheapening of their Grade 1

listed stately home.  Diana’s brother Charles, the current Earl Spencer, complained that she had given the place “the wedding cake vulgarity of a five star hotel in Monaco” and had sold off

family treasures to pay for it.  He and his sisters were “allocated rooms in the attics that had barely been thought adequate for junior housemaids,” Charles complained.  Relations were

frosty but when their father suffered a brain haemorrhage in 1978, two years after marrying Raine, they were soon forced to admit that he pulled through thanks to her devoted care then and

for the next 14 years.  Diana’s respect was grudging at first but by the time she and Prince Charles were courting, it seems she had grown fond of her stepmother.  In 2012, letters which

were due to be sold at auction for around £10,000 each but were subsequently withdrawn from sale, shed new light on their relationship.  Far from being curt, the tone of the 1981 letters was

warm, affectionate and appreciative.  “A million thanks for all (underlined) your support and advice,” Diana wrote in one letter in her characteristic round hand.  PA "Acid Raine"

was the only child of the prolific romantic novelist Dame Barbara Cartland She ended the letter with “Lucky Daddy having you.”  The affection was clearly mutual. “Dearest Raine,” wrote

Diana from her bachelor girl flat in London’s Earl’s Court in a letter dated January 18, 1981: “What a touching letter you wrote to me. It contained far too much praise which I’m sure I’m

not due for!  “Raine, you have been extremely kind and patient with all this and consequently I just wanted you to know how grateful I am.”  There were clearly still tensions at times but in

her biography The Diana Chronicles, author Tina Brown claimed that by 1993 – and after the painful end of her own unhappy marriage – Diana had “finally made her peace” with her stepmother.

  At one stage, she invited her for “a weepy reconciliation lunch” at Kensington Palace.  Thereafter they lunched together regularly at the Connaught Grill.  Friends hailed her for never

seeking to capitalise on her rapprochement with her famous stepdaughter.  She never spoke publicly about their relationship until 10 years after Diana’s death when she was called to give

evidence at her inquest in 2007.  She recalled then those cosy meetings, their shared interest in horoscopes, and Diana’s belief that the stars would eventually deliver true love to her. 

PRINCESS DIANA'S MOST ICONIC MOMENTS REMEMBERED “Being a stepmother is a very difficult role, almost unwinnable,” she said.  “The only hope is that you will achieve a certain friendship

but it ended with me loving my stepdaughter very much.”  For her part, Diana told her stepmother that unlike almost everyone else in her life, Raine had “no hidden agenda”.  When Earl

Spencer died in March 1992, she immediately moved out of Althorp – she and her stepson, the new Earl still had a poor relationship – with a £4million inheritance and a Mayfair townhouse from

her late husband.  In July 1993 she married again, this time to Count Jean-François Pineton de Chambrun, a member of a prominent French family.  But the marriage was short-lived.  The

couple divorced in 1995.  In her later life she continued to work well into her 80s in her role as director of Harrods International and Harrods Estates.  EXPRESS When Earl Spencer died in

March 1992, she immediately moved out of Althorp She was good friends with Harrods’ former owner Mohamed Al-Fayed and occasionally worked in the department store.  “Ironically, I never went

shopping in Harrods. It was my husband [Earl Spencer] who practically lived there,” she told the Diana inquest.  Choosing to flout convention by using the title, Raine, Countess Spencer,

despite her later marriage, she died at least at peace with the memory of her most famous stepchild.  In a rare interview last year, she told the Gentlewoman Magazine: “Diana was a lovely

person. She had incredibly heavy pressures put upon her but we ended up huge friends.  “She used to come and sit on my sofa and tell me her troubles. I’m very happy about that.  “I’m so glad

that my poor John, who would have been devastated, died before she did.  "But what was lovely was that she thanked me at the end for looking after him.”