This story is difficult to read, and reminds us of the difficult decisions that every family has to make -- decisions that we can only weep over years later:
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother warned against sending the Prince of Wales to boarding school in Scotland because she thought he would be miserable, according to a collection of her previously unpublished letters.
Despite the Queen Mother’s pleas, the Duke of Edinburgh ruled that his eldest son would attend his alma mater, located in rugged countryside near Elgin. But her concerns proved accurate after the prince described the inter-denominational school as “Colditz in kilts.”
His father's reason was that if Charleys went to Eton (so close to London) he would be hounded by the press -- and we do know what the press is capable of in making one's life unpleasant. But the isolation of the school chosen for Charles was only part of his future suffering:
He thought Charles would thrive at Gordonstoun because his eldest son loved Scotland, the author said.
But, unlike his father, the young prince did not enjoy the Spartan regime, which included cold showers, physical punishment and morning runs all year round.
In a letter home in 1963, he wrote: “The people in my dormitory are foul. Goodness, they are horrid. I don’t know how anybody could be so foul.”
One contemporary at the school recalled that Charles was bullied “maliciously, cruelly and without respite.”
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