The first time Felipe de Borbón entered the grounds of Lakefield College School (LCS), located in the Canadian town of the same name in the province of Ontario, 160 kilometers north of Toronto, he was a 16-year-old teenager, whom his parents, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía, had sent with the purpose of distancing him from a protective environment and so that he could relate to other young people. This Thursday, the then young prince, whom his classmates called Flip, returned to the classrooms where he studied the equivalent of COU, and although he carried with him his status as King of Spain, he did so as an alumnus, acknowledging that that first experience away from home marked his early youth.
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“I am proud to belong to the class of 1985. It has been a long time since I left Lakefield, but Lakefield has never left me,” said the King, visibly moved, before an audience made up of teachers, students, and former classmates.
When Felipe de Borbón entered the grounds of Lakefield College School (LCS), located in the Canadian town of the same name in the province of Ontario, 180 kilometers north of Toronto, he was a 16-year-old teenager, whom his parents, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía, had sent with the purpose of distancing him from a protective environment and so that he could relate to other young people.
“Times change,” said the King yesterday, “but there are moments and places (and people) that remain within us leaving a strong mark on who we are, long after. Lakefield is definitely one of those places.”
The King acknowledged, before the current teachers, students, and some classmates, that at LCS he not only found academic knowledge but also “a way of understanding the world… and living it, with more harmony, respect for others, and tolerance towards our differences. Here, far from home, I also grew and matured in the values of effort, friendship, and commitment.”
He recalled some anecdotes such as when, due to a fire drill in the middle of the Canadian winter, the students were left outside with temperatures close to -20 °C. “It was,” said the King, “an experience from which I learned something about resilience and the silent strength that arises from facing challenges together.” He also does not forget other episodes during canoe trips, with bears, black flies, and everything else,” and joked saying that all that “helped me prepare for the years I later spent in the military academies of Spain.
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Already in his role as King, Felipe VI reflected on the values of education that “does not impose ideas, but allows us to think, question, and understand; critical thinking makes us better citizens, more selfless, supportive, and understanding,” as well as the importance of training leaders. “Our democracies,” argued the King, “depend on people willing to serve, to defend shared values, and to work for the common good, even when it is demanding,” he said.
The name Felipe de Borbón, followed by the title Prince of Asturias or King of Spain, is engraved on hundreds of plaques, most in Spain, but also abroad, such as the one hanging in a wing of Georgetown University (Washington DC, USA), where between 1993 and 1995 he completed a master’s degree in International Relations. As of yesterday, it is also on the plaque that will hang on a wall of what will be the new student center of LCS.
The prestigious Canadian boarding school thus honors its most illustrious student during the 1984/1985 academic year. The prestigious Canadian boarding school thus honors its most illustrious student during the 1984/1985 academic year. The now King is also, since this Thursday, honorary patron of the Lakefield College Foundation, an appointment with which the educational center wishes to express “the pride that the Lakefield community feels for its connection with His Majesty, as well as the school’s gratitude for his support and connection.”
The ceremony, followed by a lunch with the academic community and some of his classmates, closed the King’s official trip to Canada.
During the time he was in Canada, the then Prince of Asturias received a series of letters from his father, King Juan Carlos I, which remained private until, in 2004, his tutor, General José Antonio Alcina, published them in a book, in which he also recounted the details of the ten months, except for Christmas and Easter holidays, that Felipe de Borbón spent in Canada. Alcina was the prince’s tutor between 1984 and 1993.
The first piece of advice the father gave the son said: “You must appear cheerful, even if you are tired; kind, even if you don’t feel like it; attentive, even if you are not interested; obliged, even if you don’t want to…” In another letter, King Juan Carlos told his heir that he must understand that trust and power, for when he became king, had to be earned “through dignity, personality, and serious and exemplary conduct”: “It is no longer possible to assume that our rights and privileges are by birth…,” wrote Juan Carlos I to the future Felipe VI
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