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Among the tributes to Prince Philip following his death, many reflected on the lives of young people changed by participation in his Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.
First at her school to achieve a gold award, one former Maidstone schoolgirl shares her memories of the experience of taking part.
“We got shot at by a farmer who said we were on his land, and the police had to be called. So that was quite exciting.”
Jane Haystead’s voice lights up as she remembers the experience of being away from her Maidstone home as a teenager, camping during a Duke of Edinburgh’s Award expedition.
As an 18-year-old she became the first person at Maidstone School for Girls - now Invicta Grammar School - to attain the gold award after entering the programme through the local Girls’ Brigade.
Now 61, retired from a career in health and care and living in Westgate-on-Sea, she still has a trove of memorabilia from her time earning the bronze, silver and gold awards.
“It was through me getting it that the school started to do it afterwards,”she said.
“I was quite shy, a bit of a bookworm, not very independent, but this forced me out of myself. I followed my brother, he did it as well, and it’s been a connection between us all our lives.
“I’ve got my memory box and I’ve looked at it all, and there’s expedition logs and things, I’ve laughed at some of the comments I made and thought ‘you were so young’.”
To complete each stage of the scheme, participants had to take part in a number of challenges and tasks.
For Jane, who completed the awards in 1978 under her maiden name Thomas, this meant taking on service in the community, completing creative tasks, and setting out on expeditions, locally at first but then later in the Welsh mountains of Snowdonia.
“We did it at Easter, at the end of day one we put our tents up and went to bed, and when we woke up we had to dig ourselves out of the snow the following morning,” she said.
“I can still see it absolutely in my mind’s eye.
“The girls back in those days did a slightly shorter course, I think only 36 miles, but I know that’s all been levelled up now, us forerunners have proven we can do it with the boys.”
Recalling her trip to Buckingham Palace to receive her gold award from Prince Philip, she said: “He asked me what I had done for my hobby, I think.
“Me and the person next to me both answered at the same time, but he looked at me and said ‘I was talking to you’.
“When my invitation came through I was a student nurse by then, I had only done my introduction course.
“We were being shown around the wards, being explained the shifts and all that, and at the end I put my hand up and said ‘how do I ask for a day off?’
“The sister on the ward she stripped me down in front of everybody, absolutely ran me into the floor, ‘you don’t ask for time off, you’re a student nurse, what do you expect?’
“After about 10 minutes of ranting she asked me ‘why do you need a day off?’ and I said ‘I’ve got an invitation to Buckingham Palace’. She never lived it down.”
