The Duke of Edinburgh has congratulated young people as they celebrated their gold awards in the gardens of The Palace of Holyroodhouse.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award (DofE) was founded by the late Prince Philip in 1956 and to achieve a gold award young people must complete physical, skills, volunteering and expedition sections as well as a residential.
On Friday, the Palace of Holyroodhouse’s gardens were transformed into a festival-style party, with games, food stalls, and various activities as around 600 gold award winners celebrated their achievements.
Attendees heard from famous Scots including Olympic runner Eilish McColgan, singer Nathan Evans, and actor James Cosmo.
The Duke of Edinburgh, who received his own award from his father, Prince Philip, in 1986, gave a speech and told attendees: “It’s really good to see you all here today, and particularly, congratulations to each and every one of you who have managed to achieve your gold DofE.
“This is for you, this is our recognition and celebration of your achievements. I hope that today is an excellent day for you and a real celebration for that.”
Referring back to his youth when he began working towards his own award, he joked: “I hope the experience of doing your award was a good one, that it was enjoyable. I’m guessing there were probably times when you were wondering why you were doing it, and if it was anything like mine that was probably about halfway through the expedition!”
He added: “But it’s a great feeling when you get to the end and it’s that feeling of pride and success in your achievement that we want to celebrate today and we want to capture.”
Olympian and British and european record holder, Eilish McColgan, delivered a speech alongside Nerea Winchester, 18, from Glasgow, who celebrated her own gold award achievement.
Ms McColgan said: “There are many similarities between the DofE and my athletics club. Not just in the obvious areas like hard work and discipline, but that sense of community. Being surrounded by likeminded individuals, all striving to make themselves better.
“In 2011, I ran in my first ever live televised race. Dreaming of qualifying for the world championships. But with 600m to go. I heard a pop. I knew instantly I’d broken my foot. But me being me, and a typical stubborn Scot, I wasn’t going to let a broken foot stop me. I kept running.
“Sadly, it wasn’t the fairytale ending. Finishing the race came at a cost. A few days later the surgeon told me I’d never run professionally again but suggested I could ‘hobby jog’. It was one of the toughest moments of my life, but like many of you on your DofE journeys, I’d learned the value of resilience, of showing up, and of not giving up when things get hard.
“I think if I didn’t have my friends from the running club to distract me, my recovery would have looked very different. Instead, I really leant on my support network. Even when I couldn’t run, I’d still go down to the track just to keep my motivation high. I truly believe that made a huge difference.”
Nerea, also a DofE youth ambassador, volunteered for Oxfam for three years as part of the work towards earning her award.
She said: “Through my DofE sections, I found groups and niches of people who not only accepted my chatty, loud self, but embraced it fully. Without meeting these people through the DofE, I can’t guarantee I would feel confident enough to unapologetically be myself.
“DofE gave me a purpose in life and let me express my creativity like never before. I never felt I was good at art or capable of creating it.
“However, when I picked up knitting for my DofE Skills section, I found an amazing creative outlet. It was challenging, but I learned to trust the process and, in doing so, built my resilience as well as rediscovering my creativity.”
Speaking before he gave a speech to those attending, actor James Cosmo told the PA News Agency: “If you are a parent listening out there, or a young person, you should really think about doing the DofE award.
“No matter what your circumstance is, there’s something there to suit you and your future career, for your personal development, nothing beats it, it’s fantastic.”
He added: “These people go through the bronze, silver and then gold and so a lot of the time they’re doing voluntary work, nobody’s paying much attention to them, they’re just getting on with it and showing the dedication and stick ability.
“So it’s nice at the end of it all, to recognise the effort they’ve made when clearly there was nobody there to cheer them on. They did it.”
