Charles III was The Gordonstoun SocietyIt reflects his attachment to his Scottish alma mater, despite the teenage struggles he experienced there.
This patronage marked his first official connection with the Moray Society. He attended school from 1962 to 1967.Principal Lisa Carr welcomed the news, saying it was a “great honour”.
The Duke of Edinburgh floated the idea of sending Charles to the same school where he had spent his youth, but the impressionable Charles clearly felt miserable, lonely and bullied, as evidenced by letters he wrote at the time.
“It’s hell here, especially at night. I can barely sleep these days… The people in the dorms are awful, they’re so awful. I don’t know how they can be so awful – throwing slippers at me all night, hitting me with pillows, running across the room and punching me as hard as they can, then coming back as fast as they can to wake up the whole dorm at the same time,” he wrote. “This place is awful!”
Whether he ever actually called himself “Colditz in a kilt,” as depicted in the Netflix series “The Crown,” is up for debate, but biographers say he was teased about his ears, beaten on the playground and shunned by his peers.
It was at Gordonstoun that he first demonstrated his acting talent, playing the lead role in a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Despite reported misgivings about the place, he was appointed Guardian, or head of the boys, in his final year and is known to have made delicious hot chocolate for the new boarders. He left the school with five O-levels and two A-levels.
Under the outdoor-focused regime instilled by the school’s German founder, Kurt Hahn, the future king’s day was to begin at 7 a.m. with hot and cold showers and a short morning run. Hahn was an early believer in the power of cold showers for health.
King Charles loved sailing, liked hockey, hated cricket and apparently once broke his nose on a rugby field. He played the cello in the school orchestra, sang in the choir and enjoyed pottery. Like his father, he was a member of the school’s coastguard, or watchdog.
Looking back on 1974, the King told the Observer: “I’m glad I went to Gordonstoun.”
In 1975 he added in the House of Lords: “I am always amazed at the amount of bad talk that is said about Gordonstoun and the careless use of old clichés that are used to describe it. Gordonstoun was tough only in the sense that it demanded more from me as an individual, both mentally and physically, than most other schools. I was fortunate in that I believe Gordonstoun taught me a great deal about myself and my abilities and disabilities.”
