For many years Jean Angus (and husband Dave) was synonymous with the wonderful accomplishments and support offered to young people in the East Thurrock area by the Duke of Edinburgh awards scheme.

WITH his Duke of Edinburgh's Award Prince Philip enabled so many young Thurrock people's lives to be shaped and inspired - fostering their hopes and encouraging their ambitions.

While the Duke of Edinburgh's Award has been around since 1956 I can only speak of our experiences since being asked to run an Open Duke of Edinburgh's Award Centre in Stanford-le-Hope in 1986 offering the award to young people that attended Hassenbrook, St Clere's and Gable Hall Schools to all come together in the Arthur Bugler Primary School building on a Monday evening. And what a challenging experience that was.

We were overwhelmed with more than 100 young people joining within weeks of the opening. There was already in place the Grays DofE Club but it was felt at the time that a lot of young people in the Stanford and Corringham area would benefit from having their own Open Award Centre locally and so the Stanford Award Centre began, before becoming St Clere's Open Award Centre in 1993.

The Award has four levels at Bronze and Silver Awards and increases to five at Gold Award level and they are: the Physical Recreation Section which enables young people to develop or learn a new sporting interest, the Service Section where they volunteer their time in the community, the Skills Section where they develop an existing skill or learn a new Skill and the Expedition Section.

At Gold Level from the age of 16 young people were asked to do a Residential where they stay away from home volunteering their time for five days and four nights in a residential setting. All of this relies on the voluntary time of adults in helping young people which is much appreciated by all.

The young people from Stanford volunteered their time with anything from working with the Park Rangers at Langdon Hills to volunteering their time at Senior Citizen's residential care homes to First Aid Courses. The choices they were able to make were vast. The Physical Recreation Section included anything from archery to any physical sporting activities The Skills Section saw many new activities being achieved from computing to learning to play a musical instrument, literally hundreds of new things to learn.

The Expedition Section, most young people's favourite, required being totally self-sufficient in groups from four to six depending on the level of the Award being worked towards. The very first expedition that we did was to the Maldon area in 1987 for the Bronze award and required the whole Angus Family to go along and make it happen which included my husband Dave Angus, plus daughter Lucy who was eight at the time and son Ross who was 11.

They both went on to complete their own Bronze, Silver and Gold awards and led a Group to Japan in 2003 without their parents so we are very proud of their achievements.

By 1989 we were heading towards the first Gold expedition which required young people to walk specified miles over four days and be self-sufficient with staff checking on the young people along the way to ensure everyone was safe and well. What a challenge the expedition section is and how rewarding building teams and friendships. Young people were asked to leave expedition check cards along the way with a message so that staff could collect these up too while ensuring all are safe.

The first group of young people to join in 1986 wanted something challenging to do for their Gold Expedition and Residential Sections and decided to go to New Zealand.

This took two years of team work where everyone, including parents, worked together to raise funds to make it all happen. We did abseiling at the Orsett Show that Dave organised, had raffle stalls at Fetes, we did quiz nights, a barn dance, a coast-to-coast walk covering 200 miles as a sponsored event. You name it, we did it to achieve our goal.

I applied to the Commonwealth Youth Exchange for funding and in April 1990, we were due to fly out on 27th June 1990. I received a telephone call that said we had been awarded some free flights from Prince Edward's Pegasus Project which meant that airlines who operated in Commonwealth countries donated some free flights. I initially did not believe it as we had worked so hard to fundraise. Who would give any free flights? .... but they did!

Air New Zealand offered free flights, the cost of which we divided equally among all who were going to New Zealand. Prince Edward came to Heathrow Airport to see us off and on return I was asked to take two of the young people who went with me to New Zealand to St James' Palace for lunch with Prince Edward and give a talk on our trip to the Pegasus Trustees who were all CEOs of Commonwealth Airlines who were taking part in the Pegasus Project as we were the first DofE Group in the country to travel.

On a personal level it was suggested to me, as Award Centre Leader, I apply for a Travelling Fellowship to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. The competition was very tough but I achieved a Fellowship and am very proud of that. I had to go to London for interview and then the Duke of Gloucester presented me with my Fellowship Certificate in 1991.

Since our first trip to New Zealand in 1990 we have completed a further three: 1993, 1997 and 2005 as well as hosting young people from New Zealand to complete their Gold in the UK. In 2003 the Gold Group that year decided they wanted their challenge to be completing their Award in Japan so Ross and Lucy Angus, as leaders, led the trip with two volunteer colleagues to make it all happen.

Lovely things have come out of The Duke of Edinburgh's Award thanks to Prince Philip's initial introduction enabling young people from Thurrock to achieve and these include:

• Two young people met, Michelle from Hassenbrook School and Glenn from St Clere's School who would not have met if they had not done their DofE. They fell in love and got married in their early 20s and are now in their late 40s with two grown up children of their own. Michelle is now a Qualified veterinary nurse who volunteered in the local vets as part of her award and Glenn became a qualified accountant who did Money Matters as part of his Award.

• A young pupil had been expelled from her school and joined another school in the area and took up her DofE with us. On her Bronze expedition she said: "Jean I am determined to see this through" and she went on to complete her Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards and become a qualified nurse.

When young people get to Gold Award they go to St James' Palace to receive it and when Prince Philip was in better health, while he did not actually give out the Awards, as The Duke of Edinburgh he always turned up to congratulate all the young people there on their special day.