Life in a strict convent boarding school in the 1970's, hundreds of miles from home and family, with letters the only way to keep in touch, wouldn't have been my choice of a childhood. However, at the age of 14 the DofE award scheme came into my life, and with it, a multitude of opportunities that I wouldn't otherwise have had. It may also have been the basis of my career. At the age of 5 I decided that I was going to be a nurse. But the DofE community service for bronze, silver and gold, enabled me to work as a volunteer in the local cottage hospital. Not only did I gain some useful experience, but the matron there provided me with a reference for the school of nursing I wanted to attend. I am currently working in the same hospital in which I trained, and have spent the 38 years since I qualified, either nursing or teaching care related subjects.
The scheme has left me with a life long love of OS maps and a hatred of camping! Trying to sleep on the hard ground, freezing and then washing in a horse trough in the morning is not my idea of fun. I still arrange flowers, though, in fact I also trained as a florist!
All of this was facilitated by our games Mistress. Claire Powell, along with her husband John, and some of our other secular teachers. These people gave us an enormous amount of their time and energy which I'm not sure we appreciated at the time, but I certainly do now, and I thank them for it.
For various reasons, I wasn't able to complete my gold award by the time I left school. Then, my nurse training intervened. In spite of this, with the help of Kevin Waterson, I managed to complete the scheme. I received my award at St James palace and had the opportunity to speak to the Duke. Nearly 35 years later, I still have my brooch and this week, it will be pinned to my nurses uniform. I will wear it with both pride and thanks. Pride in that I persevered and achieved the award, and sincere thanks that I was given the opportunity to participate.