Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, married into the royal family after feeling abandoned by her own. Photo / Getty Images
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, married into the royal family after feeling abandoned by her own. Photo / Getty Images
Sarah Ferguson was branded a “sheep’s a***” by her dad and had “the devil” beaten out of her by her mum.
The Duchess of York, 63, added her mother was a “child” who didn’t know ”how to be a mummy” as she opened up about her traumatic upbringing, which sawher abandoned aged 14 when her mum, Susan Barrantes, went to live in Argentina with her boyfriend, her dad Ronald became obsessed with polo, and her sister Jane moved to Australia.
She told the Sunday Times when asked if she was close to her parents: ”My mother was a beautiful woman but she was a child herself.
”She didn’t know how to be a mummy. We would never dream now of using the language my parents used on us as children.
”Dad used to call me a sheep’s a***. If I refused to eat my semolina mum would hit me and say she needed to beat the devil out of me.
”Food became my best friend. At difficult times I’ve always turned to childhood foods like boiled egg and soldiers, baked potatoes and sausage rolls.”
Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew on the balcony of Buckingham Palace after their marriage on July 23, 1986 in London, England. Photo / Getty Images
She added about her family breaking up: “When I was 14 my mother eloped to Argentina with a very good-looking polo player. She came back for my sister’s wedding.
”Then my sister left to start her new married life in Australia and I lost them both on the same day.
”I never truly understood why my mother left me and it has taken me a long time to deal with my low self-esteem.
”When I was little I used to leave notes in her dressing room saying, ’Mummy, please don’t die in a car crash.”
Sarah Ferguson was close to Diana, Princess of Wales, who also died in a car accident. Photo / Getty Images
Shockingly, Ferguson’s mum did die in a car accident, in Argentina in 1998, aged 61. She was returning to her country home on September 19, 1998 when the Rover 400 she was driving had a head-on collision with a Renault catering truck on a two-lane highway.
The driver of the truck, Jose Maria Rodriguez, suffered a broken ankle, but Barrantes was not wearing a seat belt and was decapitated and killed.
Her then-25-year-old nephew, Raphael, was in her car and hospitalised with minor injuries.
Barrantes was also in a road crash the year before, when her car flipped an estimated seven times.
In 1976, Ferguson’s father, Major Ronald Ferguson, married for the second time to Susan Rosemary Deptford and they had three children. He died in March 2003.
