I was bullied into DoE by my Mother who totally suppressed my life in every way, she was a staunch royalist and saw it as an opportunity to go to Buckingham Palace. However, it was the best thing she ever did for me, as I had no independence of character, confidence, voice and was a shy nervous wreck.
Six years later, I had, under my belt, swimming accolades, I swam for my school and town, I got to a silver medal in Latin American ballroom dancing. I enjoyed a canoeing and sailing course continuing canoeing back home, I could roll a canoe in three ways. The Gold expedition around the Hardknot pass in the Lake District Langdales, pushed our reserves of resilience to the utmost, all but one of the other groups gave up as it did not stop raining for five days, we camped by tarns in the mountains, joining up two of the driest of three wet sleeping bags to clamber into rather than face hypothermia, wringing out wet clothes to put on the next morning to save the dry ones for the next night, not seeing a living soul for three days. Community service for me was working in a geriatric hospital via WRVS spending time with people who had no visitors. All of these things, I continued after the timeframe of the DoE completed.
I attained two jobs on the back of the award and ended up with a professional career as an Independent Financial Adviser, albeit after leaving school/college with secretarial qualifications, again organised by Mother. The last ten years turning/running a period Beaumaris house as a 5 star b&b.
So Mother got her day in BP (who sadly died 3 years later) whilst my Dad, Head Engineer of the Dept of Environment, Burtonwood, stood at the gates. We also saw Bob Hope at the London Palladium and had a day around the houses of Parliament and lunch in the House of Lords via my Dads colleague who was Head Engineer there. We left the car park 20 minutes before the Airy Neave explosion.
I thank the Duke of Edinburgh for not only changing my life but saving it.