David Cameron (left) stars as Harold Rabbit in a school production of Toad of Toad Hall in 1975If the Queen does ask David Cameron to form the next Government, she may remember the first time she saw him - when he was dressed as a rabbit.
It was 35 years ago and the eight-year-old Cameron was taking part in a production of Toad Of Toad Hall at the exclusive Heatherdown School in Ascot, Berkshire.
The eight-year-old David was playing ‘Harold Rabbit’ and his old teacher Chris Black at exclusive Heatherdown School in Ascot, Berkshire, remembers him as a confident actor.
Another picture, from JM Barrie’s ‘The Boy David’ shows the schoolboy standing at a discretely scaled-down lectern playing the narrator.
Already looking statesman-like at only ten years old, he still needs the support of a platform to give him a lift up.
David Cameron started at Heatherdown, which also boasts Prince Andrew as an alumnus, when he was seven, two years after Prince Edward arrived.
The school, now closed, was so elitist that it famously provided three separate lavatories on Sports’ Day – one for Ladies, one for Gentlemen and one for Chauffeurs
Mr Black, now retired, said: ‘I had the task of producing the annual school play.
‘In 1975 we decided to perform a ‘musical’ for parents and spent many weeks rehearsing Toad of Toad Hall, for which I had written a musical score.
The part of ‘Mole’ was played by 11 year old Prince Edward, a role which possibly inspired his subsequent interest in the theatre, and the final night’s performance was attended by Her Majesty, The Queen.
35 years on: How Mr Cameron leaving his North Kensington home yesterdayJoining Her Majesty in the front row were a number of other Royals including Princess Alexandra and the Duke and Duchess of Kent, all there to support the dramatic efforts of their various offspring.
‘David’s elder brother Alexander, now a successful QC, played Ratty and although he was somewhat overshadowed by his brother the young Cameron Minor’s determination and ambition was already much in evidence.
‘At Heatherdown David was known as Cameron Mi to distinguish him from his elder brother Cameron Ma (Maior)’
Mr Cameron’s Eton and Oxford background has been widely recounted, but he has spoken publicly only once about his time at prep school – to claim he was ‘rather tubby’ and ‘lost a stone every term because the helpings were so small’.
A former teacher Rhidian Llewellyn described Heatherdown as an ‘amazing little school, the most select in the country.
Mr Llewellyn said he was asked to put up the Ladies, Gentlemen and Chauffeurs signs for sports day in 1976 or 1977.
He said: ‘It was deadly serious – the drivers were not supposed to mix with the other guests.’
‘It was like something out of Evelyn Waugh’s novel Decline And Fall. Among all those toffs, Cameron was one of the most normal – he was just a middle-class boy from a nice family.
‘Edward was also a great chap, thoroughly nice and rather more academic than his brother Andrew, who was at the school when I was a pupil.’
Other pupils at Heatherdown when Cameron was there included Peter Getty, the grandson of oil billionaire John Paul Getty, James Ogilvy, the son of Princess Alexandra of Kent and the late Sir Angus Ogilvy; and Charles Pettifer, the Guards Officer who went on to marry Tiggy Legge- Bourke, nanny of Prince William and Prince Harry.
Edward left Heatherdown in 1977 to go to Gordonstoun in Scotland. Cameron left for Eton in 1979.
source :dailymail
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