I am greatly saddened by the death of the Duke of Edinburgh and my deepest sympathy is with Her majesty and all his family. But so many memories have come back of my own very special journey through the Award scheme. Because Sir John Hunt's daughter, Sue, was at our school [Berkhamsted School for Girls] we were among the first girls to pioneer the scheme for girls from 1958. I was honoured to receive my gold award from Prince Phillip in the gardens of Buckingham Palace on 16 May 1961 and then to attend a special dinner at the Mansion House to celebrate the Award Scheme. But it is the amazing range of interests, activities, volunteer work, etc. for which I am most grateful. Everything was a new and often very testing experience, especially as we were at a boarding school. We developed such a wide range of new interests and were tested and assessed all along the way. I didn't realise at the time just how much self-confidence and determined independence it gave me, nor how much it broadened my outlook on life. But from then on these qualities allowed me to choose my own training and career path and to experience a fascinating and varied working life in the UK, in France and for 13 years in South Africa. I have been so fortunate to have had so many varied and fulfilling experiences throughout my life and I realise that my attitude to all of this was crucially influenced by what I learned through the Award Scheme.