19 October 2023 , 14:49
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Prince William and Prince Harry might have been born into extraordinary privilege as members of the royal family. But their childhood was far from idyllic. When they were still young, their parents' marital problems dominated headlines, both in print and on television.
At the time, William and Harry attended Ludgrove School, having both started there when they turned eight. The facility, a boarding school about a 30-minute drive from , offers fortnightly boarding for boys aged 8-13 years old.
The headmaster of the elite school reportedly made it his 'mission' to protect the royal brothers from tabloid gossip about the Royal Family while they were on campus.
An exterior view of Ludgrove School in Wokingham (Getty Images)"Ludgrove was extremely good at protecting him and later Harry," Dickie Arbiter, the former spokesperson for the Prince and later said. "It took them out of troubled waters."
It's understood that Ludgrove's headmaster, Gerald Barber, banned newspapers in the library and ordered all pupils' television viewing to be restricted and monitored. (Educational programs were reportedly the only shows allowed). He also asked teachers and staff to avoid leaving their newspapers around and to switch off their TVs in front of students.
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"The Barbers were more than equipped to deal with the princes," a former pupil at Ludgrove said. "William and Harry weren't the only members of a royal family to attend the school and they certainly weren't the only children to come from dysfunctional homes."
Due to these tremendous efforts, both William and Harry were eventually able to feel more sheltered at prep school. William is believed to have felt particularly grateful for these school rules.
According to the book William at 40: The Making of a Modern Monarch, by royal expert Robert Jobson, the young prince relished spending time away from his family at Ludgrove. He wrote: "For William, school was not only fun but a respite from his mother's increasing tendency to lean on him as an emotional crutch."
Apparently, as the elder of Princess Diana's two sons, William was forced to take on the role of his mother's support system in light of her divorce. "She had taken to calling William 'the man in my life,' and he did his best to be supportive - once telling her that he wanted to be a policeman so he could protect her. But he was only 10 when his parents officially separated in 1992."
It's thought that it was Princess Diana who chose Ludgrove with the aim of giving her children more normal experience - she strongly believed that William would be a better king if he was able to relate to normal people. At Ludgrove, William had to share a bedroom with four other boys and, while the rooms were cosy, they would have been a far cry from the room at his Kensington Palace home.