Bush lessons in life for man who would be King

The Timbertop student who shared living quarters in the Australian bush with Charles says the period fostered the monarch’s love of nature.

A 17-year-old Prince Charles shows his outdoors spirit during his stay at Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop campus in 1966.

The fellow student who shared living quarters in the Australian bush with the then Prince of Wales says the “extremely formative” period provided the future king with a level of freedom and seclusion he had not previously experienced, and fostered his love of nature.

Like the then 17-year-old Prince Charles, Stuart McGregor, then 18, was older than the predominantly 14- and 15-year-old students at Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop campus in the foothills of the Australian Alps near Mansfield, in northeast Victoria, when school started in January 1966.

“It was an awkward position for him as an older student,” says Mr McGregor, who formed an enduring friendship with the man who is now King Charles III.

“Basically he was preparing for his A-Levels and I was preparing to go to university in Melbourne.”

Hailing from Derrinallum, between Geelong and Hamilton in Victoria’s Western District, Mr McGregor had completed school at Geelong Grammar’s main Corio campus the previous year.

He said he’s “unaware of the exact circumstance” that led then Geelong headmaster Tommy Garnett to ask him to act as a companion to the young royal, but “there was job to be done and I was someone there to assist”.

“I really felt for Charles when he arrived. Here he is, he’s thrown with this bloke from the bush, from a very different background, and expected to live in a couple of rooms with him,” he said.

Established in the early 1950s with the aim of teaching self-reliance and physical endurance, the Timbertop curriculum saw about 130 boys sent out each weekend on hikes of up to 100km through the rugged mountains east of Mt Buller.

The Prince of Wales participated fully in all the activities, acting in the role of a tutor or prefect alongside Mr McGregor and completing tasks including woodchopping and gruelling cross-country runs with all the other students and staff.

Fondly recalling his days at Timbertop during a visit to Corio in 2005, Charles remembered “blisters on my hands and feet almost every day”, bleeding from his back, nights in a freezing tent and being called a “Pommy bastard” – “but in spite of all that, I loved it”.

Having initially planned to attend Timbertop for a single term, the prince stayed on for a second.

A 17-year-old Prince Charles shows his outdoors spirit during his stay at Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop campus in 1966.

Mr McGregor said his friend had “slowly transformed himself from an English public schoolboy, if one can stereotype, to someone who was much more comfortable with the environment in which he found himself”.

“He always has and still does enjoy the natural world … and we’ve seen how that has developed through his engagement with the climate change debate,” he said.

The rough timber quarters the pair shared consisted of a living room with a wood-fired stove and two desks, a shower and toilet with concrete floor, and a bedroom with two single beds at the end of a larger building known as the “Single Masters’ Quarters”.

An adjacent room was set aside for the prince’s Australian Federal Police bodyguard, Derek Sharp.

“Derek was a fine fellow – a very good selection in my view. Congenial but efficient, and he wasn’t necessarily with us the entire time,” Mr McGregor says.

“I think that was part of the success of the exercise. Here was an opportunity for a future king to be far away from the maddening crowd, if you like, and that allowed him space that in many respects he hadn’t enjoyed, it seemed to me.

“He was constantly being scrutinised by media … Timbertop provided that space to allow him to grow. It was an extremely formative period for him, and I think the context was extremely well thought out.”

Praising Timbertop master Michael Hanley and his wife, Claire, for the pastoral care they provided, Mr McGregor said the person who “really made a difference and made it work” was Squadron Leader Sir David Checketts, who later became Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales.

A 17-year-old Prince Charles shows his outdoors spirit during his stay at Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop campus in 1966

“He had been asked by Prince Philip would he mind accompanying and supporting, looking after, even fathering his son in Australia,” Mr McGregor said.

Sir David moved with his wife and family to Coldstream, in the Yarra Valley, for the duration of prince’s visit.

“David was constantly in touch and often at Timbertop, and often on some of our hiking adventures,” Mr McGregor said.

“He’s one of the people that I revere most of all. I thought he was absolutely fundamental to the development of the Prince of Wales, and now King, at a very formative stage of his life.”

“It was also a period … where he was able to engage in family life. Many weekends we spent at Coldstream with the Checketts family. We were able to have meals in our pyjamas, watch TV, go walking in the local community.

“We formed a good relationship and that’s prevailed. He has been extremely courteous and loyal to me, which is really a juxtaposition in many respects. I’ve obviously attempted to do the same.”