‘Happy Campers’ – a real oxymoron in my mind

By Jessica Hodson Walker

And it all started on the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award practice expedition.  A weekend without sleep, a pulled knee ligament and a phobia of tents is what comes to mind when someone says “DofE”. Having been driven to Wales on a wet, dreary Saturday in the middle of winter, in a minibus packed with teenage girls, we embarked on what is my lasting memory of what a weekend of camping entails.

We started with fresh legs, full of confidence and weighed down with Soreen bars and packs full of water. The walking bit was durable, until I damaged a ligament in my knee (still causes me grief 15 years later), being chased by cows was surprisingly good fun and sharing snacks and chatting for hours was a nice way to while the miles away.

The “camping” was where it really started to go downhill. We somehow managed to pitch the tent in gale force winds and torrential rain. Clearly, we didn’t do a particularly good job and we awoke at 2am to find ourselves sleeping in a paddling pool of Welsh rainwater. Enough was enough. Our teachers ‘rescued’ us shortly after and said we could ‘sleep’ in the minibus. Unfortunately, this also had a leaking roof so wasn’t quite as warm or dry as we’d hoped. Mercifully, the weather was so appalling that the trip was cut short and on Sunday morning, sleep deprived, limping and with sodden rucksacks full of untouched Kendal mint cake, we headed home.

Despite the somewhat memorable experience I had, the positive impact of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award is undeniable. It encourages exercise, teamwork, community service and learning to survive and develop skills with an independence that can be quite liberating for a young person. It provides a platform to learn skills we rarely practice nowadays such as map reading and to understand that there are consequences for doing something badly and in a rush. If I ever do camp again, I will certainly spend more time on pitching the tent correctly…

As the world reflects on the incredible life that His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh lived, the initiatives like the DofE Award highlights his passion for supporting young people. The Award is meant to be challenging but it also provides confidence, independence, and opportunities to people of any background.

Since its inception in 1956, the UK has seen 6.7 million young people take up the award. Even amidst the pandemic, it saw an increase in the number of people taking part to 295,409 in 2019-20, of which 72,577 were from disadvantaged backgrounds (6% higher than the previous year). This in turn generated an incredible 3,397,043 hours of voluntary work for a host of great causes.[1] The benefit this has to mental health and the confidence of those who take part is unquestionable.

Whilst my encounter with the award left me less fond of camping and with a recurring knee issue, it gave me a great story to tell which I recount fondly, an opportunity to give the camping and walking thing a go, as well as to take up voluntary work, learn new skills and really work as part of a group of tired and cold people for the first time independently.

I’m glad I did it and equally glad I stopped after the Bronze Award.

[1] https://www.dofe.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/DofE-Statistics-2020-UK-portrait_v2.pdf