King Charles’s former classmate has admitted to keeping some of the monarch’s hair for more than 50 years. Righto.
The King attended Geelong Grammar School in Australia in 1966, and Richard Kumnick was a student there.
The new king attended the institution as an exchange student for two semesters before delivering his inaugural speech as head of state on September 9.
Richard claims that he went to a barbershop right after the then-Prince and took some of the hair home with him as a souvenir.
In an interview with Nine News, he said: “The then Prince Charles was waiting to get his hair cut and I was waiting for his to be completed.”
“I noticed his hair drop onto the floor. It was all his because he was the first one to have his haircut.”
Richard claimed to have taken a “handful” of the hair and to have preserved it ever since in an envelope.
“I must say it’s a different colour than the hair we see today,” he said.
Richard claimed that Charles, who was a prefect at the time, had discovered him smoking but chose not to tell a teacher.
He continued, “It was a dark room on the side of our living quarters and I was having a Marlboro and he happened to pop into the boiler room.”
“I don’t know whether he called me Kumnick or not but he said, ‘I will have those thank you’.
“I was pleased that that was as far as it went, because if it had gone any further I would have ended up in Mr Hanley’s office.”
Richard responded when asked if he thought Charles would make a suitable ruler: “Oh, I think he will be in the same vein as his mother.”
“He would be perfect. I’m a royalist big time. I didn’t think the time would come. I thought, maybe Charles would be too old.”
On September 9, Charles delivered his first speech as head of state.
During the speech, he paid tribute to his late mother and thanked the public for their condolences and support.
As he concluded his first speech in front of the public, Charles addressed the Queen directly, saying, “And to my darling Mama, as you begin your last great journey to join my dear late Papa, I want simply to say this: thank you.”
“Thank you for your love and devotion to our family and to the family of nations you have served so diligently all these years.”
“May ‘flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest’.”