King Charles III has agreed to become a patron of the Gordonstoun Association, reflecting an affection for his alma mater in Scotland despite the teenage angst he experienced there.
The patronage is his first official link with the Moray institution, which he attended from 1962 until 1967, and was welcomed by the school principal, Lisa Kerr, as a “great honour”.
It was the Duke of Edinburgh’s idea to send him to the same school that shaped his own youth. But a sensitive Charles clearly at times felt miserable, lonely and bullied, as evidenced in letters he wrote at the time.
“It’s such hell here especially at night. I don’t get any sleep practically at all nowadays … The people in my dormitory are foul. Goodness they are horrid, I don’t know how anyone could be so foul. They throw slippers all night long or hit me with pillows or rush across the room and hit me as hard as they can, then beetle back again as fast as they can, waking up everyone else in the dormitory at the same time,” he wrote in one letter. “It’s such a HOLE this place!”
Whether he ever actually called it “Colditz in kilts”, as depicted in the Netflix series The Crown, is debatable. But he was reportedly mocked about his ears, beaten up on the playing fields and shunned by the cliques, according to his biographers.
It was at Gordonstoun he first exhibited his drama skills, rising to play the lead in a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Despite his reported misgivings about the place, he was made Guardian, or head boy, in his final year and is remembered for making excellent hot chocolate for new boarders. He left the school with five O-levels and two A-levels.
Under the regime instilled by Kurt Hahn, the school’s German founder, with its focus on outdoor activities, the future king’s day would have started at 7am with a warm then cold shower, and a short morning run. Hahn was an early believer in the power of cold showers for health purposes.
King Charles apparently loved sailing, liked hockey, loathed cricket and broke his nose on the rugby field. He played the cello in the school orchestra, sang in the choir and enjoyed pottery. Like his father before him, he was a member of the school’s HM Coastguards or Watchers.
Looking back in 1974, the king told the the Observer: “I’m glad I went to Gordonstoun.”
To the House of Lords, in 1975, he added: “I am always astonished by the amount of rot talked about Gordonstoun and the careless use of ancient cliches 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 – mentally or physically. I am lucky in that I believe it taught me a great deal about myself and my own abilities and disabilities.”