Prince Charles on his first day at Gordonstoun public school. He is accompanied by his father, Prince Philip. Photo / Getty Images
Prince Charles on his first day at Gordonstoun public school. He is accompanied by his father, Prince Philip. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
It’s very telling that neither I nor the King sent our children to Gordonstoun, preferring Eton instead, despite both attending the former. We both hated it, only I wasn’t going to be King. I think I know why he went: his father prospered at Gordonstoun. But the boy I met, 13 years old, painfully shy, was not the Duke of Edinburgh.
It’s all a long time ago – 61 years – and Prince Charles, as we had to call him, was by no means the only junior bullied by marauding gangs of older boys at a British public school. But he had it harder. We were in the same class, but not the same house. It was common knowledge he was attacked in his dormitory; tipped out of bed while sleeping, that sort of stuff. But the first time I saw the bullying for myself was playing rugby.
A couple of the boys decided it would be funny to “do” him. This meant punching him, pulling his ears, all out of sight in the scrum. He never said a word. He just got on with it. Never complain, never explain. It was drummed into my generation, backed up with Gordonstoun’s own motto of Plus est en vous – There is more in you [than you think].
Gordonstoun is in the far north of Scotland, on the Moray Firth to the east of Inverness. There was a lot to do outside of school time. You could sail, which was good fun (though that turned into a disaster for the prince, read on) and there were all sorts of community-minded activities. There was a fire brigade, I played in the pipe band, the prince was in the Coastguard, which involved sitting for hours staring at the grey sea. In the summer, lifeguard duty meant jumping into it.
There was zero pastoral care. Charles is said to have called it “Colditz in a kilt”. The cold was a constant companion. Five years of shirtless morning runs no matter what the weather, cold showers (because the hot water had run out) and the dormitory windows flung wide open.
One of my abiding images of the prince is of him walking alone with his blue duffle coat pulled tight around him, hands deep in the pockets. How do I remember that? Because he didn’t have the “right” sort of duffle coat. His, and mine incidentally, had come from some smart London outfitters, yet another reason to be teased.
The Duke of Edinburgh walks with his son Prince Charles at Gordonstoun. Photo / Getty Images
Being friends with him was nigh on impossible in the early days. A couple of boys tried to be friendly but themselves got teased and jeered at for being the “king’s friends”. But he may have found some solace in the classroom. He was quite bright and I don’t remember him being picked on there. Sometimes he would let his guard down and chat. He told us he didn’t know where the kitchens were in Buckingham Palace. I don’t think he was kidding. And he was a good mimic with a sense of the ridiculous. He liked The Goon Show, we all did and could do what I call “Eccles speak”.
We took Highland dancing lessons together. There were no women. Gordonstoun was monastic – they didn’t allow girl pupils for some years after we left – so we had to dance with each other. My wife likes to misquote the old music hall song about Charles’s great uncle, “You’ll Never Guess I Married the Man who Danced with the Prince of Wales”. I can’t remember who led or if he stood on my feet, but it was ridiculous.
There was one thing that made him very cool in our eyes: he had a bodyguard, Sgt Green, a large, friendly London copper in a Land Rover who followed him around. The prince confided in him in those first years. He may have been the only friend the prince had.
If you worked hard and didn’t blot your copy book, you got to go on a “cruise” in one of the school boats, a ketch called Pinta. The prince joined Pinta on the west coast of Scotland and sailed out to Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. When they landed, they had a choice, I’m told, of going to the cinema or to the Crown Hotel. He was 14.
The Queen visiting Prince Charles at Gordonstoun School on his last day. 31st July 1967. (Photo by Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)
The boys chose the Crown Hotel, where the prince ordered a cherry brandy. To this day, I bet he wishes he’d picked a lager shandy. Somebody shopped him to the Daily Mirror and all hell broke loose in the national press. The collateral was Sgt Green was sacked and the prince lost his only friend and confidante.
In time, the prince did begin to make friends. He had a couple of resounding successes as an actor. In 1965, he played the Duke of Exeter to my Lieutenant Bardolph in Henry V, though I think the plot was largely lost on us. I hope so. The young director who introduced us to Shakespeare and went on to be a great headmaster of Eton was Sir Eric Anderson.
The prince disappeared to Geelong Grammar School, in Victoria, Australia, for two terms in 1966, when he was 17. I had left Gordonstoun by the time he returned to be guardian (head boy), so his school days ended on a high note. But it didn’t start out that way.
Who knows what scars he carries from that period, it’s 60-plus years ago. I don’t imagine he was unharmed by it. But Gordonstoun gave him his love of the natural world, and his empathy with people from all walks of life. It might even give some solace to countless British children to know their King was bullied and survived.
