I had done a lot of camping and walking as a young child, so started direct Gold at 16 via the Guide Association. In fact I turned 16 at the start of my residential. This was a fortnight on the Scottish island of Shuna for an International Youth Year (1985) project with British and German students. It was organised by the British Forces Youth Service. One of their youth leaders had run our little East Riding market town's Youth Centre. The group from Osnabruck needed an overnight stop on the way to Scotland. A deal was struck! They slept on our YC floor and we joined the group. On Shuna we beach cleared, canoed, lived on army rations and crewed the Gordonstoun yacht for a few days. I then did Grade 8 flute, learnt to single scull, did the Young Leader scheme with the Guide Association for service and finished with an expedition in the Bavarian Alps. This was organised through the British Forces Youth Service contact again. We walked out of Sonthofen MP ski hut and had to bivi every night as camping was not allowed. It was intense! Hot, high and basic! I got my award just before my 18th birthday in Sept 1987. The whole thing was a brilliant complement to an academic set of A levels. I met people very different from me who I would not otherwise have met and learnt more about my own and others' capacity for resilience, endurance and humour. (Example: an expedition colleague had a bent spine and was in a lot of pain as we walked - but so determined, as her father had said she would never stick at it when she started Bronze - with our teamwork carrying her stuff and her grit she got her Gold). I got a taste for gin! I did a lot more rowing. I still spend every summer walking high in the Alps. I volunteer a lot and am learning the violin. I went to an Award ceremony at St James' in the autumn of 1988 (my first term at Oxford Univ) and the Duke spoke to our group. But I still remember I forgot to call him 'Sir' when I asked him which Scottish island we were on. Oops!!