A ROYAL editor whose husband went to school with Prince Charles recalled a sad bullying story involving the future king where pupils recorded him snoring in an attempt to sell the tape.Editor of Majesty magazine Ingrid Seward told GB News a story of Prince Charles while he attended Gordonstoun when he was younger.
Ms Seward revealed her late husband, Ross Benson, went to school with Prince Charles and was fairly close to the future king. But the royal commentator explained how Prince Charles struggled at the boarding school and was the victim of bullying, recalling a story from her husband which saw pupils attempt to record the Prince of Wales’ snoring to sell on.
Speaking on GB News, host Nigel Farage asked Ms Seward if she was close to the Royal Family and asked about her husband attending Gordonstoun.She explained: “He let everyone know that, yeah he was at Gordonstoun with Prince Charles, in the same class.”They became great friends and knowing Ross as I did he made sure he became friends with Prince Charles.
“[Ross] loved Gordonstoun and he said that Charles had a really hard time there because… if you were friendly with Charles they accused you of being a sycophant.”And if you weren’t friends with him they would call you a bully, and Charles did get bullied there.
“There was this one story I really love, and I only discovered it much later when Ross wrote it for an article.”He tells this wonderful story because Prince Charles used to snore and [he was] in one of those beds by the window which was kept open all summer.
“So the boys in the dorm above put down a little speaker attached to a tape recorder and they recorded him snoring…”And they were going to flog the tape as ‘this is the future king snoring’, well you can imagine when the headmaster found out.”
Ms Seward added the tape likely still exists somewhere and was asked by Mr Farage whether she was a friend of the royals.She explained none of the Royal Family were real friends of hers as many are “only friends within themselves”.When Charles was younger he did not have kind words to say about Gordonstroun, which he described as “Colditz in kilts”, but he would later change his mind.
In a 1975 interview, the Prince of Wales praised the institution, which he credits for teaching him “a great deal about my own abilities and disabilities. It taught me to accept challenges and take initiative”.In the same interview, he said he was “glad” to have attended Gordonstroun and admitted the “toughness of the place” was “much exaggerated”.
The heir apparent also spent two terms in 1966 at the Timbertop campus of Geelong Grammar School in Victoria, Australia.Letters published from the then-teenage royal show off how Charles felt about the college.He said in 1964: “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.“I still wish I could come home. It’s such a hole this place!”
