Colour photograph of a man and two Cadets standing outside in front of a white St John ambulance with luminous yellow and green chevrons. All three are wearing green and black St John uniform and smiling at the camera.

About the Project

This year-long project has involved Cadets and interviewees from across England. We are grateful to them all for sharing their enthusiasm, skills and stories. We would also like to thank the project’s funders, The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the St John Fellowship, for their generous support.

The centenary year provided an amazing opportunity to capture the personal recollections of Cadets through the decades. We set out to record the breadth of the Cadet experience across time and place, from big cities to rural communities and seaside towns. What motivated young people to join, what was their training like and when did they first put it into practice? These are just some of the questions we explored, focusing both on the exceptional one-off events but also on day-to-day experiences that often go unrecorded. It’s been a privilege to listen to the former Cadets as they have generously shared their memories and explained the often-significant impact being a Cadet has had and continues to have on their lives.