Sunday 11 September 2022 03:25 PM Queen Elizabeth death: Inside King Charles' time in Australia as a young ... trends now
Royal insiders have revealed how two terms at a prestigious Australian school shaped King Charles III into the colourful man he is today.
The then Prince spent two semesters at Geelong Grammar School in Victoria's High Country back in 1966 when he was just 17-years-old.
In a speech years later, he fondly recalled the experience as the start of a long love affair with Australia and said it had transformed him from a boy into a man.
'Part of my own education took place here in Australia,' Charles told the crowd on a visit Down Under.
'Quite frankly, it was by far the best part. While I was here I had the Pommy bits bashed off me. Like chips off an old block.'
In a speech years later, Prince Charles fondly recalled his days as a schoolboy in Victoria as the beginning of a long love affair with Australia
Charles was a Prefect at the no-nonsense boarding school with the other students asked to refer to the star student as Prince Charles.
The 73-year-old has visited Australia on 16 occasions, some with his first wife Diana and his young son William and more recently with his second wife Camilla, now the Queen Consort in the wake of Queen Elizabeth's death on Friday, aged 96.
Before his two semesters at Geelong, Charles attended the same boarding school as his father Prince Phillip - the renowned Gordonstoun School in Elgin, Scotland.
However the school didn't prove as great a match for the heir who likened it to a German concentration camp' and dubbed the institution 'Colditz in kilts'.
A student who attended Gordonstoun for four years alongside the Prince told 60 Minutes Australia that the school hadn't been an 'ideal' choice.
Johnny Stonborough remembered the Prince being 'homesick' and often 'walking alone'.
The then Prince of Wales spent two semesters at the prestigious Geelong Grammar School in Victoria's High Country back in 1966 when he was just 17-years-old
Charles (pictured at Geelong Grammar) was a Prefect at the no-nonsense boarding school with the other students asked to refer to the star student as Prince Charles
Other boys avoided the Prince so they wouldn't become the targets of school bullies who relished having a young Royal to tease.
Mr Stonborough said he once watched Charles be viciously attacked in a scrum playing rugby.
'Scrums are rough places anyway,' he told host Tara Brown.
'I could see that they were pulling his ears and he got punched, but the interesting thing is, and it left an impression on me even at the time, is that he was very stoic.
'He never complained, he didn't whinge, he didn't cry, he didn't do anything that other people might have done in the same circumstances.
'He just got on with it.'
The then Prince of Wales made a much-anticipated trip to Australia with his wife Diana and a 10-month-old Prince William in 1983 (pictured)
Brown asked if the Prince had fought back against the schoolyard bullies.
'Absolutely not, no. He was not that sort of person,' Mr Stonborough replied.
'He was quite a gentle soul and once you got to know him a little bit better, actually a remarkably nice person.'
Brown wondered if he saw this as a sign of strength or weakness.
'That's a very interesting question. I think I saw it as a sign of strength, but it also made him vulnerable, and sometimes one wished he retaliated a little more,' Mr Stonborough said.
During his schooling in Australia however, he became much happier and more confident in himself.
During his visits, the Royal has represented the Queen at state funerals, stole a kiss from an Australian model in Perth and even enjoyed a dip at Bondi Beach (pictured)
The then Prince of Wales made a much-anticipated trip to Australia with his wife Diana and a 10-month-old Prince William in 1983.
During his visits, the Royal has represented the Queen at state funerals, stole a kiss from an Australian model in Perth and even enjoyed a dip at Bondi Beach.
In 1994, a 23-year-old man was arrested after firing a starter pistol at Charles as he
