Coronation Street star Sue Cleaver has shared an unsettling encounter with Prince Andrew during her childhood years while residing at the prestigious Gordonstoun School where her father was on staff.
At 61, Sue revealed to ‘My Time Capsule’ podcast host Michael Fenton Stevens the unusual tales cherished from living within the royal’s haunt, home to some senior Royals such as King Charles himself.
Sue’s time in the esteemed institution’s bounds included a notably eerie experience with Prince Andrew who had apparently visited her home and narrated daunting school-time sagas.
Reliving those moments, Sue said: “Prince Andrew was there when I was there. In fact, I do remember he used to come, he must have been in my dad’s tutor group. I do remember him coming round to the house and there’d be a few that would come round.”
She added with noticeable unease: “I think he once terrified me with stories about… we were about to move, I remember one conversation and he said that when you were new at school they stuck your head down the toilet.”, reports the Scottish Daily Express.
Despite the Duke of York’s frightful schoolyard anecdotes, Sue fondly recounted her life between six and twelve years old spent within Gordonstoun’s embrace, filled with moped rides and plum picking for her mum’s homemade jam.
She reminisced: “When I was present in my life it was just a wonderful experience, especially in the summer holidays when everyone had gone and my mum would give me breakfast, make me a sandwich and then say ‘When the sun starts to come down come home, and don’t’ go near the lake’.”
“I had a moped at ten years old, my brother and I had mopeds. We couldn’t do this in term time but in the holidays, I’d zoom off. It was just my paradise, there were just so many places to go. I remember there were these huge plum trees all along a wall.”
“I just used to go and fill my helmet to the brim with plums and take them home for my mum to make jam and just running free and just total freedom. It was a very privileged position to be in but we weren’t the privileged ones we were the workers.”
Discussing how society’s understanding has evolved, Sue pondered with Michael, positing that it might not be an increase in unpleasant incidents, but rather our awareness of them that has grown.
She elaborated: “We’ve lost all that innocence haven’t we now? The reality from what I’ve heard is that the incidence of things untoward happening hasn’t changed, it’s just we know about it.”