Although the State Opening is the most significant public event in the queen s recent diary, she has not been idle. Only days after her husband s death, she was carrying out some routine duties, such as royal audiences to receive new ambassadors and presiding over a retirement ceremony for her most senior royal household official, according to the Court Circular, the official record of royal engagements.
On Monday, she was back at her laptop at Windsor Castle, where she has spent most of the pandemic, talking via video call to the Royal Life Saving Society, sharing fond memories of achieving her own life-saving qualification as a teen princess 80 years ago. She became the first young person in the Commonwealth to achieve the Society’s Junior Respiration Award, Buckingham Palace said.
The Queen has shared memories of achieving her own lifesaving qualification aged 14 during a video call with the Royal Life Saving Society - before revealing she didn t realise she was the first in the Commonwealth to do it.
The Society works across 30 Commonwealth nations with the aim of eliminating preventable death by drowning, promoting water safety, and delivering lifesaving and lifeguarding education.
In 1941, as Princess Elizabeth, Her Majesty, became the first young person in the Commonwealth to achieve the Society s Junior Respiration Award, providing an example to young people and helping to establish lifesaving and resuscitation qualifications across the network of nations.
Courtesy Buckingham Palace
Eighty years ago, then-Princess Elizabeth received a special honor from the Royal Life Saving Society. The organization, founded in 1891, works to prevent avoidable drowning deaths by promoting water safety and delivering lifesaving and lifeguarding education. The Queen was the first person to receive the Society s Junior Respiration Award, for providing an example to young people and helping to establish lifesaving and resuscitation qualifications across the Commonwealth.
Today, the Queen participated in a video call with the organization, and shared her memories about the award. I didn’t realize I was the first one I just did it, and had to work very hard for it! the Queen recalled, of receiving the honor in 1941. It was a great achievement and I was very proud to wear the badge on the front of my swimming suit. It was very grand, I thought.
The Queen joined a video call with the Royal Life Saving Society. Credit: Buckingham Palace
The Queen has spoken of her time as a teenager when she became the first person in the Commonwealth to receive a lifesaving award for swimming.
She was talking in public for the first time since the death of Prince Philip and joined a video call with the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS) - of which she has been Patron since 1952. The problem of drowning is very much an international problem, the Queen said during the call after being told how there are still 235,000 drowning deaths across the world each year.