Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award

On Tuesday the 26^th of October 1999. Me and my wife (Julie) went down to St James palace to receive my Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award Certificate. We had to set off at 5:00 in the morning to get there for 10:00 as my guest had a phone call from the palace a couple of days in advance asking him to be a group Marshall which involved looking after a group of about 15 people from an area and introducing them to Prince Phillip.

We arrived in London with a little time to spare and went for a walk in St James park where the squirrels are really tame. We also saw the start of the horse guard parade.

When we arrived at the palace, there was quite a queue as over 500 people were being presented with their certificates that day. Unfortunately cameras are not allowed in the palace and so I have no pictures of the palace to show. The presentation group that I was in was in the Banquet room which is a magnificent room and also the last one that the Duke goes into. This means that he spends more time in this room.

The room marshal in our room was an ex-Olympic runner who won a silver award at the 1984 Olympics and he is also the regional officer for the Duke of Edinburgh's Award.

The Duke of Edinburgh is not able to present each of the certificates personally and so the award office invites celebrities down to make the presentations. The celebrities there on the day I went down were Charlie Dimmock (Ground Force), Sir David Attenborough, and Ms Marie Ashby (Carlton Television News presenter). The celebrity who presented my certificate was Ms Marie Ashby.

Ms Ashby was the only celebrity who stayed around after the presentations for photos. I had a quick chat with her and she is a very nice person and not just a personality. I will be writing a bit more about her when I have the chance.

After the presentation we went for a walk around London and then got stuck in the traffic coming back out and so did not arrive home until 8 o clock that night.