My son had to stop reading about the abuse I suffered...he couldn't bear it'

Earl Spencer's trauma at school

- Matt Nixson

PRINCESS Diana's younger brother has admitted his harrowing account of abuse at boarding school has given one of his own sons nightmares.

In his memoir A Very Private School, Earl Spencer, 59, has detailed physical and sexual assaults he suffered at the exclusive Maidwell Hall prep school in Northamptonshire.

Public reaction to his horrifying book has been "incredibly gener ous", he told the Express, but it has had a devastating effect on his son Louis, 30.

The earl said: "I showed him an earlier draft of it and he had to stop reading it because he was having nightmares.

"So he just stopped reading it he just couldn't bear it." The father of seven, said two of his sons had decided to be weekly boarders in their mid-teens.

"My second son, who's 20 now, really wanted to do it because he had a half-brother from his mother's side who had gone to that school and had done well. But he really struggled."

He added: "The school was incredibly kind and they let me and his mother take him out every Wednesday.