Di had two assignations with Charles aboard Royal train before wedding

Two months short of Diana, Princess of Wales tenth death anniversary, and explosive book about her is about to hit the stands.

London, June 11 : Two months short of Diana, Princess of Wales' tenth death anniversary, and explosive book about her is about to hit the stands.

The book, titled 'The Diana Chronicles', has been penned by the late Princess' 'friend' Tina Brown, who not only portrays her as a spiteful and manipulative woman, but also as a "media savvy neurotic".

Brown, who in 1985 attacked the Prince of Wales' neglect of his young wife as the reason for their crumbling marriage just four years into their supposedly 'fairy-tale' life, has this time turned the tables on Diana, and portrays her as a "spiteful, manipulative" woman who was more enamoured by the thought of being Queen than by Charles.

The book also reveals that Prince Charles was the one who was "in love" with his spouse during the couple's marriage, and not vice versa.

Diana, she reveals, ruthlessly pursued Charles because of his position. When her mother Frances Shand Kydd tried to talk her out of the marriage, by demanding to know whether she loved the Prince or loved "what he is", Diana retorted: "What's the difference?"

The book, which is sure to rake up a controversy, also rubbishes accounts that Diana tried to commit suicide while pregnant with Prince William, or that she was a virgin until she married Charles, insisting that she had had "assignations" with Charles on the Royal train before their marriage.

However, the late Princess' long-time friend and confidante, psychic healer Simone Simmons, described many of Brown's conclusions as "rubbish", and said that the Diana's sons were sure to be 'horrified' by suggestions that she was not a good mother.

"Diana's boys will be horrified at any suggestion that she was a bad mother. William was her friend and confidante. He used to sit on her lap and snuggle into her neck," the Daily Mail quoted her, as saying.

She added that Brown's opinion that Diana was more interested in Charles the Prince than Charles the man was wrong.

"And it is absolute rubbish to suggest Diana was less interested in Charles than 'who he was'. She fell in love with Charles first of all because his sense of humour was so wonderful and he knew so much when she had led a sheltered life," she insisted.

"I don't believe the Royal Train stories. If a blonde was seen with Charles there, it was Camilla.

"Diana was a virgin when she got married because she told me about her disappointment on her wedding night. She expected it to be like a Barbara Cartland novel and it wasn't," she said.

However, there are points where Miss Simmons agrees with Brown.

She agrees that Diana never meant to marry Dodi Al Fayed, her companion at the time of her death, and that Prince Charles was "heartbroken" when she died.

"She did not romance Dodi. She was being his therapist, trying to get him off cocaine. There is no way she could have fancied Dodi because Diana was not attracted to men with hairy backs and thought they were rather Neanderthal. We had such a laugh about that," Miss Simmons said.

"Charles was heartbroken when Diana died. It was the wake-up call he needed. He had to grow up on an emotional level. He and Diana were best friends before she died," she added.

Even the Prince of Wales' current wife Camilla, the book suggests, was not so much interested in Charles as she was in her first husband Andrew Parker Bowles, whom she pursued relentlessly for six years.

It was only his infidelity that had Camilla becoming Prince Charles' mistress.

Brown also rubbishes Diana's claim in Andrew Morton's book 'Diana: Her True Story' that when she discovered on the eve of her wedding that Charles still was seeing Camilla she was so upset, she said, that she ate everything in sight, becoming as "sick as a parrot".

William Tallon, the Queen Mother's page, has a very different memory of that night.

Brown says that he told her that Diana spent the night giddily celebrating.

He reveals that he watched her ride a bike around the Clarence House grounds singing: "I'm going to marry the Prince of Wales tomorrow!"

The book, for which Brown reportedly received 1million pounds advance, is being published by Random House.

200,000 copies scheduled to be released in America and Britain, and the publishers already taking advance orders on Amazon.

ANI