The Rest Of the Royal Family:The other side of the Earl's girls: Immaculately coiffed, they turned heads at the Abbey... but back home in South Africa

but back home in South Africa, Diana's nieces have a VERY racy streak

Three blonde heads, all tinted a perfect sunny platinum, with three Philip Treacy fascinators perched on top. Three beautiful faces, disconcertingly similar — with wide blue eyes and a delicately feminine jawline.

Has there ever been a more photogenic triple-dose of society dynamite than Lady Kitty, Amelia and Eliza Spencer? The girls, daughters of Princess Diana’s brother Earl Spencer, were lined up in a row in Westminster Abbey at the Royal Wedding.

While their father, with his florid complexion and burgeoning jowls, looks ever more like his own father, Johnny Spencer, his three daughters are blooming with youthful perfection.

Royal wedding belles: Amelia, Eliza and Kitty in Westminster Abbey waiting for the Royal Wedding to begin

Some commentators felt that, with their shrimp-pink lipstick, obvious cleavage and heavy black kohl, the ‘look’ was more Baywatch than Burke’s Peerage.

In particular, Lady Kitty’s nude-toned Victoria Beckham dress — which was tight and low cut — was dubbed the ‘convention buster’ of the day. Tatler magazine didn’t hail the 20-year-old as the most eligible girl in the country for nothing.

Kitty’s twin younger sisters, who are 18, were dressed by Errol Arendz, a designer based in Cape Town who is a long-standing friend of their mother, Victoria Lockwood. He chose a nude shift for Eliza and a navy dress for Amelia.

Naturally, the Spencer girls’ many supporters in South Africa, where they have been raised, are enraptured after this triumphant and high-profile society debut.

Chu Suwannapha, the fashion editor of the country’s popular Fairlady magazine, said that they looked ‘amazing and sensual’ and added: ‘Generally, the Earl’s three daughters are always well-dressed. Their styles are quite sexy and laid back.’ If anything, Suwannapha said their dresses were ‘a little bit too conservative’.

But if you think the Spencer girls were rather racy at the wedding, that’s nothing to their exotic lifestyle in South Africa.

For proof of this we need only glance at photographs of the three sisters, posted by their Facebook friends and on other websites. Some of them border on what might be regarded as pornographic.

All three girls are pictured laughing as they pose in their micro-mini-skirts, while simulating sex acts; one gesture — by Lady Kitty — is so crude that it cannot decently be described.

Party girl: Lady Kitty in a raunchy pose

The girls smooch and kiss and dance with friends; they show V-signs to the camera. Alcohol is seldom absent in the pictures.

Inevitably, such pictures have invited less than complimentary website comments. ‘Well, aren’t William and Harry’s cousins such prim and proper ladies,’ says one subscriber to a website for royal watchers.

‘Tell me about it — are they all like that from South Africa?’ another user responds.

Perhaps these raunchy photographs were taken during a rare moment of excess.

The Spencer sisters have many friends they party with in South Africa. ‘The twins are modest about being sort of like royalty,’ says one of their friends. ‘They want to be one of the crowd. But Kitty sits there [in the clubs] looking like a celeb.’

The sisters are still young, of course; and away from the vibrant Cape Town night scene they enjoy, there is doubtless a far more respectable side to them. Yet it is hardly a flattering portrait. One wonders what their mother, Victoria Lockwood, a recovered alcoholic, thinks.

And remembering his stirring eulogy at Diana’s funeral — when he pledged that her ‘blood family’ would do all in their power to steer William and Harry along the right path, and protect them from the paparazzi — what must Earl Spencer make of their cavorting?

Were they to behave like this in London, say, or New York, Kitty, Amelia and Eliza would never be out of the headlines.

The Spencers can count themselves fortunate that, when it comes to prying lenses, Cape Town is still a relative backwater. But why do these girls — who were born with every advantage and educated at Cape Town’s elite Reddam House school — behave, at least on occasion, so uproariously?

According to those who know the family, it is hardly surprising given their difficult upbringing.

Indeed in the circumstances, perhaps we should credit the sisters, and their 17-year-old brother, the Viscount Louis Spencer, for turning out so well. Particularly Eliza, whose first serious boyfriend, Christopher Elliot — a brilliant body-surfer — was tragically killed in a car accident a few days before her 16th birthday.

The three sisters and their brother (who will one day inherit Earl Spencer’s title and the bulk of his £100 million estate) are the product of their father’s turbulent first marriage, to the former model Miss Lockwood.

'Their look is more Baywatch than Burke's peerage'

Born in Britain, they moved to South Africa with their parents in 1995. But in 1997, when the twins were just five and Kitty seven, their parents were embroiled in a very bitter and public divorce battle. Earl Spencer was branded a philanderer and their mother’s anorexia and drug addiction were laid bare.

She said she had discovered just six months after Kitty’s birth that Earl Spencer was conducting an extra-marital affair with journalist Sally Ann Lasson, adding that it was ‘a hard and painful betrayal’.

Dancing queen: Eliza (left) with Amelia flicking a V-sign

‘It turned me overnight from a deeply contented, first-time mother to a hurt, scared and devastated woman,’ said Victoria, who had tackled her addictions only after the birth of Louis — by which time the marriage was terribly damaged.

Kitty recalled: ‘They told me that they didn’t love one another any more, but that they still loved me. The positives of the situation were highlighted, such as two Christmases, two birthdays and two bedrooms!’

'It was as if all their Christmases had come at once'

In the months after the split, her father kept company in South Africa with model Josie Borain, but eventually he left her. He married former teacher Caroline Freud, the ex-wife of PR guru Matthew Freud, and they had two children, Edmund and Lara.

Meanwhile, the girls were raised by Victoria at Silverhurst, a gated estate in the affluent Cape Town suburb of Constantia.

It’s said that they were initially sent to school with a bodyguard, a practice that was stopped by the head teacher.

To his credit, their father kept in touch by flying to Cape Town every month or so and telephoning regularly. But he never again lived in the same country as his girls, who spent four holidays a year at Althorp, including the long summer break.

Blondes: Amelia and Eliza Spencer turned heads when out on the town

Victoria’s first lover after the divorce was dashing pharmacist Guy Woods. She then fell for handsome charmer Jonathan Aitken (no relation to the former Tory Cabinet minister). She was attending a rehab unit having been clean for some years, and he was seeking to conquer an addiction to cocaine.

They had a son, Samuel, in 2003 and were married in 2005. The girls liked their new stepfather. However, in 2009 that marriage also failed when Aitken relapsed.

Next came trouble in the form of a romance with businessman James Clinch, a former British Army lieutenant. Victoria’s ex, Aitken, was unhappy — and Clinch filed a restraining order against him after claiming Aitken threatened to shoot him.

Amid these dramas, Earl Spencer stepped in. He first moved his son and daughters into a luxurious guesthouse and later rented an even more palatial mansion. For four fun-loving teenagers — Kitty was then 19, the twins 17 and Louis 15 — it must have seemed like all their Christmases had come at once.

School days: Earl Spencer with his daughters Eliza, Kitty, and Amelia at the official opening of a Princess Diana playground and walkway in Kensington

The Earl hired au pairs and domestic staff to take care of them and, of course, paid the rent. ‘My father is strict about the money he gives us,’ Kitty said in an interview. ‘It’s all worked out so we can buy petrol, pay for our car insurance, books, accommodation and that sort of thing. I’ve also got a set amount of spending money, and if I go over, then that’s it.’

At this stage Amelia, Eliza and their brother were at school, while Kitty was studying psychology and politics at the University of Cape Town.

Lady Kitty helped look after her siblings but as her boyfriend, professional footballer Larry Cohen, lives in Johannesburg, a two-hour flight away, she came and went, leaving the twins mostly alone in the various houses with the staff.

Both performed sufficiently well in their final exams to go on to further education. ‘It is pretty amazing that Eliza and Amelia did that, given all they have been through in the last year,’ said the friend.

Miss Lockwood’s dalliance with James Clinch is now over and, happily, the children spend a good deal of time with her again.

But they have not formally moved back home; they divide their time between Silverhurst and apartments in a fashionable complex on Cape Town’s waterfront development, close to their favourite nightspots.

Lady Amelia hit the headlines recently after an alleged fight outside a McDonald’s in Cape Town. She was accused of common assault after claims she ‘swore at, smacked and kicked’ a man on crutches. But last month she was cleared of all charges.

By broad consent, Miss Lockwood was, and remains, a loving and caring mother, who has successfully overcome her addictions.

Meanwhile, the three sisters have enjoyed spending time with their cousin Prince Harry (who was a pageboy when their mother married their father). He has a soft spot for the sexy Spencer girls.

So, what’s next for them?

Happy family: Earl Spencer and his former wife Countess Victoria holding Amelia with twin Eliza and Kitty at Althorp House

Eliza and Amelia are just embarking on college life — Eliza at Varsity College and Amelia at the University of Cape Town.

Kitty is finishing her degree and is determined to shine. ‘I’m sick of being compared to other people and I just want to achieve stuff in my own right, for my self-worth and self-respect,’ she says.

She has also been busy designing her own range of casual wear and wants to include evening dresses, jewellery and possibly her own perfume, too.

After all, a brand associated with the fragrant Spencer girls is bound to be a best-seller.