Medford mail tribune., November 11, 1962, Image 42

Portrait I left) reveals how coming manhood has altered
once-chubby face of Prince Charles. At right, he imitates
his father's famous hands-behind-the-back stance.
Prince Charles
Grows Up
1 '. 1
II
As the future king of England
turns 14 on Wednesday, he has
just emerged from an awkward,
imperious boyhood and is now
attending one of the. world's
toughest schools By VERE CONNAUGHT
"m hat's him," whispered the small
X boy nudging his neighbor as the
Gordonstoun School song rose in the
Scottish air. "It's Prince Charles
don't let him see you're looking at him !"
Since the heir to England's throne and his six
detectives arrived at this Spartan academy in the
Highlands last spring, an almost miraculous si
lence has fallen. Not only the boys but the entire
population of Britain seems bound together in a
loyal conspiracy of silence.
Even London's notoriously brash newspapers
have kept their reportorial eyes averted, their
camera lenses covered.
So much for the mask of silence. What of the
behind-the-scenes drama at Buckingham Palace
which accompanied the packing off of this small
lad to what may be the most rugged school in the
world? How is he facing the challenges of growing
up as he nears his 14th birthday Wednesday?
Queen Elizabeth herself finally decided on Gor
donstoun as the school for Charles. Rumor per
sists that his attempts to pass an entrance exam
ination for Eton had failed and the choice was
limited. More probably, the balance was tipped
by his father's repeated entreaties to let the lad
go to his own old school and, as he gruffly put it,
"make a man of himself."
Whatever the cause, Elizabeth announced that
when Charles left his preparatory school, Cheam,
at the age of 13 he would travel 600 miles north
to the barren, beautiful, but distinctly glacial
school perched on the icy North Sea coast. '
Gordonstoun will certainly toughen Britain's
future monarch, as well as widen his eyes to fron
tiers outside his own island. A gaunt complex of
gray stone buildings, it was founded by an educa
tional zealot, Dr. Kurt Hahn, in the 1930s.
From a source very close to the royal family, I
learned that Charles had not shown up too well
at Cheam. He was a somewhat difficult boy, in
clined to be imperious and easily distressed when
thwarted in getting his own way.
I hear, too, that he suffered from a distressing
lack of coordination when playing field games and
that he had aroused little admiration from his
schoolmates in team sports. Charles' idea was to
get the ball and hang on to it.
For the son of a yachtsman, polo player, and
rugged outdoorsman, this is a pretty acute disad
vantage. Upper-class British boys expect the sons
of famous dads to show up well. Elizabeth knows
this and worries. Perhaps this was another reason
for sending him to Gordonstoun.
The other 400 lads at school had been well
primed. They made every effort not to look agape
at the future king who had landed among them.
As one youngster told his mother during the va
cation this summer: "It was pretty weird at first,
but we soon got used to it. He's no different,
really, from any other new boy."
Like MOST schools, Gordonstoun has traditional
j ways of initiating a "newbug" campus
name for a newcomer. With Charles, they began
with his being ignored for a day or two.
But every morning thereafter he rolled out of
his black iron bed at 7, pulled on shorts and gym
shoes and, naked above the waist, joined a file of
boys from his house. They trotted a full three
minutes in the crisp morning air, a distance of
400 yards. An icy shower followed.
"It is more of a breathing exercise than any
thing else," the school's warden, Henry Brereton,
once told me. "The boys may not run fast, but
they clean out their lungs."
Gordonstoun is noted for the physical tough
ness of its regimen and for the rigid self-discipline
expected of its students. Almost obscured is a
sound curriculum: Charles is studying English,
divinity, Latin, history, music, French, geogra
phy, mathematics, and seamanship.
In his second week, the boys around the Prince
thawed toward him. He was asked: "What's it
like to be a prince?" His answers were evasive,
and the questions were soon dropped.
AT HALF-TERM, other boys had plans to meet
L their families. Prince Charles seemed to be
at loose ends. Then a slightly older lad asked:
"Anyone like to come fishing with me?"
"I would," said Charles earnestly. "I'm jolly
good at fishing."
He was, too. The two boys spent an absorbing
afternoon together. Nobody can remember what
they caught, but the outing was a big success.
Charles had made a friend.
By term's end, he was "in" at Gordonstoun and
was allowed to wear the regulation day uniform
of navy blue. Few boys fail this first hurdle (about
four in 60, I was told), but Charles made it in
July, before the school closed for vacation.
So this term, which began Sept. 24, he is no
longer a "newbug." He has won his spurs in one
of the hardest schools in the world.
If the school's principles work as well with
Charles as they did with his father, Queen Eliza
beth's worries should soon be over. Critics say the
boys who leave Gordonstoun lack sophistication
that they are better at rope-handling than hand
holding with pretty girls but this won't upset
the Queen and her discipline-oriented husband.
family Weekly, November it, (962 J
4