Prince’s pillow fights

SIR – I was disappointed to read Lord Lexden’s account of life at Gordonstoun (Letters, January 8) through the prism of Prince Charles as a 13-year-old after two terms at school.

I was a contemporary of Prince Charles in the same house. We were certainly not mollycoddled, and conditions were Spartan by modern standards. To a teenager, though, that mattered not when there were so many activities to engage in.

Gordonstoun taught me values that I still hold dear more than 50 years on. Not least of those lies in the school motto: Plus est en Vous. I would have hoped that Prince Charles found more in himself than grumbling about the odd pillow fight. Julian Hargreaves

Ulceby, Lincolnshire