Quite simply the best thing I did at school, which was an extremely conventional girls boarding school. D of E gave me the chance to connect with the outside world, to realise that there was life beyond the classroom and it was waiting to be discovered! Design for Living gave me my first taste of Interior Design (a life-long interest), and I am still grateful for all those First Aid and Life Saving courses we undertook. On our expeditions we got lost multiple times (I now love map reading) and I remember the thrill of my first cigarette around a camp fire on the Isle of Wight (thankfully the first and last).
All in all I am so grateful for the colour it brought to my teenage years, and have always considered it a great honour to be a Gold Award holder. Likewise, I was thrilled when my daughter, Emma Trevor-Jones, also went to the Palace to meet the Duke to receive her award and asked me to join her.
Carolyn Trevor-Jones
Gold Award presented at Buckingham Palace in 1977.