TEACHER Jenni Clegg is swapping music for the mountains after being chosen as one of ten award-winning National Trust volunteers across the country.

Music teacher Jenni has been presented with a Land Rover Leadership Award in recognition of her hard work last year.

She so enjoyed volunteering for the National Trust that she is now changing her whole life.

Jenni is about to give up her job and begin a National Trust careership in countryside management. For three years she will work in North Wales on the Trust's mountainous property at Craflwyn and study countryside management in Devon.

The Bury woman and nine fellow volunteers received their awards at a presentation at the National Trust's Hanbury Hall in Worcestershire.

The winners were nominated by fellow volunteers and by Trust staff on various Working Holidays activities throughout the past year as part of the Conservation in Motion partnership which is sponsored by Land Rover.

With the supply of vehicles from Land Rover and the Conservation in Motion partnership, wardens and volunteers are able to carry out essential conservation work for the Trust, which would not otherwise be possible.

Jenni co-led a group of volunteers on Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire. Leaders are expected to look after the social aspects of the group while National Trust wardens manage the conservation work.

Jenni and fellow volunteer Paul Sargeant from Essex, organised the shopping, cooking, and drove the mini-bus while trying to integrate a volunteer with learning difficulties into the group. They also had to make sure everyone had a good time clearing scrub and harvesting sedge on this unique fragment of wilderness.

In fact, Jenni will be driving a Land Rover full-time soon now that she is to pursue a career with the National Trust.

All of the winners received a prize of a day's off-road driving at Eastnor Castle in the Malvern Hills, Land Rover's real life training ground. After instruction from Land Rover off-road driving instructors the winners will drive around the 5,000 acre estate before tucking in to a four-course lunch!

The awards day, which is an annual event, was a special celebration this year as 2002 is the 35th anniversary of the Trust's Working Holidays.