Aging & Wisdom Quote by Anthony Holden

The line lands like a well-timed pinprick: “slightly to his horror” punctures the royal aura with an exquisitely ordinary dread - the kind reserved for surprise performances and the tyranny of music teachers who never forget your weak spots. Holden, a journalist with an ear for social comedy, isn’t just recounting a school visit; he’s staging a miniature drama about class, memory, and image control.

The “Prince” (capital P doing its usual work) is meant to embody poise, continuity, and ceremonial ease. Then the setting yanks him backward into adolescence: Grammar School in Melbourne, not a palace, not a parade route, but the site of private humiliations. The music teacher’s cello becomes a prop of ambush nostalgia, a reminder that institutions - schools, the monarchy, even old instructors - survive by insisting the past is still binding. Teachers, like courtiers, retain leverage through recollection.

Holden’s intent is slyly democratic. By focusing on the Prince’s “horror,” he shrinks hierarchy to human scale without being cruel. The Prince isn’t terrified of the instrument; he’s terrified of being seen as he once was: unguarded, possibly mediocre, trapped in a moment where protocol can’t save you. The specificity of “produced a cello” is key: it’s comic because it’s tactile, sudden, slightly absurd, and it signals a forced intimacy. Royal visits trade on choreographed warmth; the cello threatens to turn the event into a personal test, with an audience and a script he didn’t approve.