Not the Gordonstoun we know
The real Scottish school portrayed in ‘The Crown’ is a far cry from ‘Colditz in kilts’, writes Guy Kelly
If the Gordonstoun Christmas cards were sent out this week, it would seem unlikely Peter Morgan, writer and creator of The Crown, made the list. As anybody who has binged their way through the entire second series of Morgan’s gigantic-budget Netflix drama about the Royal family will know, in the penultimate episode, “Paterfamilias” (incidentally a rare co-written episode, with Tom Edge), Gordonstoun, a small boarding school on the north-east coast of Scotland, takes centre stage.
Interwoven with the story of the Duke of Edinburgh’s own time at the school in the Thirties, the episode depicts Prince Charles’s grim experience there. Gordonstoun – or at least, Morgan and director Stephen Daldry’s version of it – is dark, wet and miserable. We see the young Prince being bullied by older boys. We see him finish a tearful last in the cross-country. We see him forced to sleep next to an open window in driving rain. In short, it’s very much “Colditz in kilts”, as Charles is infamously reported to have described it, and it probably won’t make the next school prospectus.
Lisa Kerr, a local who became the school’s first female principal in its 82-year-history when she took on the role in April, watched with interest. “I love a good boxset as much as the next person,” she says, in a soft Moray lilt. “It’s hard not to be impressed by the production quality, but it is a drama, not a documentary.”
On Monday, Kerr met pupils for their morning chapel congregation, and reiterated the message. “I didn’t want them to have watched it with their friends and family and to have felt embarrassed. I told them it’s a piece of television, and we know the school that really exists. It is not like that at all.”
It seems she has nothing to worry about. “Ugh, I just watched and rolled my eyes,” says 17-year-old Stephanie Hobbs, who will be head girl (or “Guardian” in Gordonstoun parlance) next term, having moved from a Kent day school for sixth form. “Everybody here is so friendly and help you feel so supported. The pastoral support is unbelievably strong.”
When Kurt Hahn, a German educationist who fled the Nazis, founded Gordonstoun in 1934, it was with a pioneering vision. Fearful of the impact fascism might have on the next generation, he wanted a school that would create well-rounded, unselfish citizens of the world, by focusing on life skills and service as much as academia.
A young Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was Gordonstoun’s 10th pupil, and loved it. He was so influenced by Dr Hahn’s ideas, in fact, that the pair worked together in 1956 when establishing the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award – a programme that has brought a piece of Gordonstoun ethos to the rest of the Commonwealth.
All three of his sons went on to attend his alma mater, as did two of his grandchildren (Zara and Peter Phillips), though quite how much Charles hated it is up for debate. Contemporaries have backed up the claim (“I happen to know, from his own lips, that Prince Charles utterly detested it,” the novelist William Boyd once declared), but Gordonstoun has been quick to point out other occasions when the prince had (slightly) more fond recollections. “I am always astonished by the amount of rot talked about Gordonstoun,” he said in a speech to the House of Lords in 1975. “I am lucky in that I believe it taught me a great deal about myself and my own abilities and disabilities.”
While the school has made changes to its 200-acre campus since Prince Charles left, Dr Hahn’s original philosophy, exemplified by the motto “There is more in you than you think”, remains firm. Resolutely “unposh” compared to its rival public school counterparts, the 550 pupils, aged between eight and 18 (girls and boys, having gone co-educational in 1972), are mostly boarders, and made up of an equal-parts Scottish, English and international mix.
Alongside traditional subjects, every Wednesday afternoon is spent doing a community service. It is also the only school to have its own fire service, manned by pupils, protecting the Grampian region. “I believe we have the broadest curriculum in the world, and one that teaches tolerance and compassion, ready to face whatever they have to face,” Kerr says.
At £12,303 per term for boarding in sixth form, nobody could accuse Gordonstoun of being cheap. In addition to the country’s royalty, it has schooled the children of David Bowie, Sean Connery, Geraldine Chaplin and John Paul Getty III. But is it good value? “Oh yes, very much so,” says Tessa Lumley, a contemporary of Prince Edward in the Eighties who now has two daughters there. “The reason I enjoyed my time there so much is why my children now enjoy it – in this beautiful setting, it accommodates different kinds of children without putting them in a bubble.” Though there’s still the odd kilt.