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Australian terms – from Timbertop. As a trained public relations man, he was ideally
suited to handle press enquiries as well as to provide a home environment for the Prince
at weekends. Checketts not only protected the Prince but also prodded him into
confronting his public duties. On one occasion when in transit on a refuelling stop, a
large crowd gathered to see Charles. Charles’s instinct was to remain out of sight on the
plane, praying for it to leave, but Checketts forced him to get out and talk to the people.
It was a formative experience; having once faced a crowd like that, he never feared it
again. On the school’s annual visit to the missionary stations of Papua and New Guinea,
he was impressed by the magnificent feather head-dresses of the ritual dancers, the
customs and skills of the tribesmen; it was the dawning of his interest in anthropology.
He was also deeply moved by the Christian spirit of the missionary churches. Charles
genuinely enjoyed his time in Australia; the family love of the countryside was strong in
him. He had met friendliness and none of the hostility which he had encountered in his
British public schools. Away from home, he grew up, although when he left he was still
unsure enough of himself to insist on Checketts reading out the farewell statement which
he had written himself.
He returned more confident to the dreaded Gordonstoun, this time driving himself
with his father sitting in the back, underlining a distinct progress from boyhood to being
an adult. He was made ‘Guardian’ of the school, a rather watered-down Gordonstoun
version of head boy. Three terms later he left, having passed his A-level exams with
grades good enough to win him a university place. He had also proved that he could act
– putting on a masterly performance as Macbeth – and developed a passion for the
cello. He made no lasting friends at Gordonstoun. It had been a brutal rite of passage
which had left scars on his psyche.
Elizabeth realized to her dismay that the experiment in sending Charles out into the
world to get along with his contemporaries had failed. She and Philip had hoped that
the experience would have developed his character and drawn him out of his shy,
unconfident self. But instead of drawing him out, it had made him more introspective
and more of a loner than ever. With her usual honesty, she passed what Morrah had to
say about Charles, now at the age of eighteen. Morrah wrote:
His naturally introspective character seems to engender barriers which he himself recognizes and would like
to remove, but which still baffle him as they have done since his early days at Cheam. He continues to feel
that others who should be his intimates are constrained by the fear that any spontaneous advances they
might make would be set down as toadying. It is still with those who are too old or too young to be suspected
of such motives that he feels most comfortable. All who see him in their company agree that he has a
wonderful way with children. He gets on excellently with older people, paying graceful deference to seniority
but speaking his own mind frankly. But with his own contemporaries, outside his near kindred, he has yet to
achieve any deep relationship. He suffers perhaps more than he knows from one of the inevitable inhibitions
of royalty. 5
Dermot Morrah, a Fellow of All Souls, a leader writer on The Timesand, as Arundel
Herald Extraordinary, a member of the Royal College of Arms, enjoyed an unusually