Students watch Queen’s funeral in Charles’s old bedroom

A group of students at the King’s former school said it was “surreal” to be sitting in his old bedroom while watching the Queen’s funeral.

Gordonstoun school, in Morayshire, suspended lessons on Monday to allow staff and students to watch the funeral broadcast.

King Charles joined the independent school in 1962 and studied there for five years.

During that time he became a member of the Coastguard and took part in school plays, winning lead parts in productions such as Macbeth and Pirates of Penzance.

He went on to become a school guardian (head boy) in his final year, as well as being a colour bearer (prefect) and head of his boarding house, Windmill Lodge.

On Monday, Amelia, the house’s current head, and her friends gathered in what is now her bedroom to watch the Queen’s funeral.

The group of girls gathered around the same desk that was used by the King during his time at the school, to take in the proceedings on a laptop.

Asked how it felt to be taking in such a historic event in the room Charles once lived in, Amelia told the PA news agency: “It’s a weird feeling.

“Also, the laptop on his old desk and watching the Queen’s funeral, it’s – yes, really weird. It’s all really connected.”

The Queen had a close connection to the school. Her late husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, studied there in his youth.

Their three sons, Charles, Edward and Andrew, all followed in their father’s footsteps, and the Princess Royal’s two children, Zara and Peter, were also students at the independent school.

Charles was the first Prince of Wales to be educated at a school instead of having private tutors, with one newspaper describing the decision to send him to a British school as “spectacular”.

The Queen regularly visited Gordonstoun, both formally and informally, taking a close interest in the progress of her sons and watching them take part in extra-curricular activities.