The Queen shared her memories of becoming the first young person in the Commonwealth to receive a Junior Lifesaving Award from the Royal Life Saving Society.
During a video call with rescuers from the company last Thursday, the Queen remembers winning the Junior Breathing Prize in February 1941, when she was 14 years old.
She completed training at a men’s club in London, where she received swimming lessons with Princess Margaret.
The Queen told rescuers she “didn’t realize I was the first”.
“I just did it and had to work really hard for it. It was a great achievement and I was very proud to wear the badge on the front of my swimsuit.
“It was very big, I thought.”
The Queen is a patron of the Royal Life Saving Society, which was founded in London in 1891 in response to the hundreds of preventable drownings that were occurring.
Sarah Downs, 20, a college student who saved the life of a baby boy as a lifeguard at a swimming pool in Exeter in 2018, asked about her memories of winning her award.
Princess Elizabeth at the time was the first person to receive the award. Buckingham Peak Palace
Speaking of the Mayfair Gentlemen’s Club, the Queen replied, “Well, that’s a very long time ago.
“I remember that of course everything was done at the Bath Club in the pool.
“And I guess I didn’t really realize what I was doing, you know because I think I must have been 12 or something, 12 or 14, or something like that.”
The Queen asked Ms Downs, a physiotherapy student at Manchester Metropolitan University, about her own life-saving experiences and how she came to earn the Society’s Russell …
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-05-10 15:52:00
