Young people enrol on the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme because of the sense of excitement they get from thinking they might get killed, says a member of the royal family whose idea of risk-taking is limited to deciding which of his relatives might score the highest US TV ratings.
Prince Edward himself is no stranger to life-or-death decisions, having bravely chosen to run away from Lympstone Barracks in 1987 rather than spend another minute training to become a Royal Marine.
"When I enrolled on that awful course, I had this fanciful notion that I'd be dashing around in front of the press for ten minutes with boot polish all over my face, before retiring to the officers' mess for an agreeable luncheon," said the prince. "It all seemed pretty bloody heroic to a young blade like me. But the hard reality turned out to be some bloody three-stripe oik bellowing at me every day to climb ten-foot walls, clamber through underwater pipes, swing over ditches on a slippery old rope and otherwise endanger life and limb for no clearly-discernable reason."
"After ten weeks of risking all for mum and country, I told myself, 'Bugger this for a game of TV producers' and took the incredibly hard decision to do a runner on the next Exmouth-Barnstaple train out of there," he explained. "And as I stood waiting at Exeter St David's for the InterCity to Paddington, I was pumped up on sheer adrenalin - knowing that skipping the remaining 20 weeks of the course could well result in my dad killing me when I got home."
"Gosh - thinking about it, wouldn't this be absolutely ripping material for my next documentary?" the prince exclaimed. "I've got a title forming in my head already! 'Edward: Prince of Danger!' What d'you think?"
"I'll get my people to ring your people," he added. "Of course, it'll mean dressing up in all that hideously-tailored camouflage gear and doing the odd bit of crawling around in the mud for a bit of action footage - but hey! No pain, no gain!"
No comments:
Post a Comment