The new British monarch, King Charles, spent his shaping years at a Scottish boarding school where his late father Prince Philip had also studied and wanted his son to go, according to Reuters.
Charles was sent to Gordonstoun, a private boarding school on the north coast of Scotland, when he was 13. Apart from developing an interest in the environment and the arts, he also dealt with bullies at the boarding school.
Gordonstoun principal Lisa Kerr is proud that the school got a chance to teach an heir to the British throne. Lisa Kerr told Reuters, “For everybody at Gordonstoun, it’s a huge sense of pride to have been the first school to educate an heir to the British throne.”
Also, the school takes pride in the fact that Charles has taken forward what he learnt at the school. “What’s more powerful for us is knowing that many of the attributes which Prince Charles takes forward as monarch were developed here at Gordonstoun,” Kerr told Reuters.
King Charles found life at Gordonstoun tough, particularly the early morning runs and cold showers.
According to novelist William Boyd, who also happens to study with Charles at the boarding school, said that the monarch did not like his time at the school, reported Reuters. In fact, in Jonathan Dimbleby’s words, king time there as an “incarceration”.
In the biography of King Charles, Dimbleby wrote, “As an adult, the Prince of Wales would insist that the decision to send him to Gordonstoun, which at the time he regarded as a prison sentence’, was in fact beneficial, instilling in him the self-discipline sense of responsibility without which he might have ‘drifted’.
“According to Jonathan Dimbleby, Charles once wrote home saying: “The people in my dormitory are foul. They throw slippers all night long or hit me with pillows … I still wish I could come home.”
GORDONSTOUN TAUGHT ME TO ACCEPT CHALLENGES: KING CHARLES
However, King Charles himself praised the school and said that it is not as bad as portrayed.
In 1975 at the House of Lords, King Charles said, “I am always astonished by the amount of rot talked about Gordonstoun and the careless use of ancient clichés used to describe it.”
“It was only tough in the sense that it demanded more of you as an individual than most other schools did — either mentally or physically. I am lucky in that I believe it taught me a great deal about myself and my own abilities and disabilities. It taught me to accept challenges and take the initiative.”
‘STUDIOUS YOUNG MAN’
Gordonstoun Principal said that there are ups and downs in everyone’s school days, when asked if Charles had been happy at the school.
“But interestingly, Prince Charles himself has said that he’s always astonished at the amount of rot talked about Gordonstoun … in many speeches, he’s talked about the really positive impact that his time here had on his life,” Lisa said.
Lisa described Charles as a “studious young man,” and that he would mix with people from a whole range of backgrounds.
Also, the king enjoyed drama and music, participating in a number of school dramas and productions.
Students at the school were thrilled to be on stage with their heir to the throne.
FROM PIRATE KING TO REAL KING
Gordonstoun’s retired PE teacher Alison Stockley recalled that things would get more exciting when students would know of King Charles performing with them.
“Just to be involved in the Gordonstoun production was always exciting … And then when we discovered that Prince Charles was going to be involved too … it did make it more exciting,” Stockley told Reuters.
“We were quite used to him being up here. He was seen in shops. He was involved in other things in the community … We knew he was very musical.”
In one of the shows named “The Pirates of Penzance”, Charles played the Pirate King. “He carried it off very well,” she said.
Gordonstoun was founded by German educator Kurt Hahn in 1934.