Clare Balding got 'suspended' from school
Broadcaster Clare Balding got "suspended" from Downe House - a private girls-only boarding and day school - because she took the "blame" for her 'friends' "shoplifting".
Clare Balding got "suspended" from school after she took the "blame" for her 'friends' "shoplifting".
The 54-year-old esteemed broadcaster - who got in with the wrong crowd while at Downe House, a private girls-only boarding and day school in Cold Ash near Newbury, Berkshire - did not want to "grass" on the "gang".
Clare recalled in the new issue of Yours magazine: "I went to the local primary school in Kingsclere, where it was hard to fit in because I was regarded as too posh.
"Then, when I started at Downe House, not posh enough.
"I fell in with a gang of bad girls who started shoplifting. Guess who got caught?
"I wasn't going to grass on my 'friends', so I took the blame and got suspended."
The Celebrity Traitors star also took responsibility for her 52-year-old brother, horse trainer Andrew Balding, breaking his leg.
Clare recalled: "I have to confess that I was responsible for my brother's worst injury.
"We were climbing on bales in the barn, and there was a rope hanging from the roof.
"I thought it would be fun to pretend to be Tarzan and swing on the rope.
"I managed it successfully, but Andrew let go of the rope and fell to the ground, breaking his leg.
"I probably didn't say sorry enough at the time, so I'll say it now."
Before presenting major sporting events - including the Olympic Games for the BBC, and Crufts for Channel 4 - Clare was an amateur flat jockey and a childhood equestrian competitor.
The much-loved household name was once "kicked in the head" by a fellow competitor, which left her "concussed" and unsure of how to climb the stairs in her home.
Clare recalled: "I remember riding in a race at Kempton when my stirrup leather snapped. I came off and got kicked in the head by one of the other runners.
"I woke up in the ambulance, asking if my horse was OK - he was - and saying that I would have won.
"Two days later, still concussed, I was looking at the stairs at home and realised I couldn't remember how to climb them."
