by Keyan Melanian

A restored Second World War destroyer showed it still had some fighting spirit by beating two other projects to a National Lottery award.

HMS Cavalier, docked at Chatham’s Historic Dockyard, made it through to the finals of The National Lottery Awards 2010 broadcast on BBC1 on Saturday from the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, London.

It was one of only three projects to make it through to the awards’ Best Education Project category and picked up a £2,000 cash prize.

It beat Chances for Life, a scheme based in York which supports young people facing homelessness and other related problems, and Stepney Bank Stables, from Newcastle, to the award

The ship was the Royal Navy’s last operational Second World War destroyer and until 1999, was rotting in a dry dock on Tyneside.

The ship was acquired for preservation and display at The Historic Dockyard, Chatham as the National Destroyer Memorial, dedicated to the 143 British Destroyers and 11,000 sailors lost at sea during the war.

Now restored, HMS Cavalier is a major heritage attraction and the focus of a range of educational programmes aimed at engaging children and young people.

Since the Lottery began in 1994, more than £24 billion has been raised for Good Causes by Lottery players and more than 340,000 grants have been made across the UK

For more information on the Awards or Lottery-funded projects log on to http://www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/