The sad death of HRH Prince Philip has quite accidentally shone a light on something that had flitted around in my head for a long time. About 10 years after it had been established by HRH Prince Philip, and as a school boy, I participated in the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme. I'd been in the Scouts but somehow it hadn't 'clicked'. The DoEAS was different and wonderful. Us lads (I was in a boys-only grammar school) loved to clamber into the old Bedford soft-back ex-army truck the school had with our army-surplus rucksacks and kapok-filled sleeping bags (woebetide if you got them wet!) and bump and rattle up to The Peak District to spend a week-end of adventure. It was brilliant. It built many things, from friendship to self-reliance. And that's where this contribution started. One way or another I've spent a lot of years living a solo life, getting on with things, being 'independent', managing on my own. But I was a bit ambivalent about thinking of myself as 'independent'. I'm not actually convinced 'independence' is even the right word to use for me as I am fairly sociable. And then the other day I read that a goal of the DoEAS was and is to develop self-reliance, apparently something dear to the heart of HRH. I suddenly realised that it's that that I've lived, a life of, self-reliance alongside somewhat reluctant independance. The two are very different. I don't know what I'll do with this new insight, but it may help me better understand a couple of things. Thanks, Your Royal Highness, thanks for contributing to my self-reliance through your initiative ?