In reply to Tony the Blade:
You do ideally need the fsrt ticket first, I would give your BCU home nation office a ring in the morning as the courses to check.
One issue you might have (other than you not letting you do the course), is that one the level one there is a rescue element on one of the days where you will be expected to perform all the fsrt rescues. The good news is that if it's anything like my level one (or whatever it's called these days) you will have lots of time and attempts. I finished all the rescues in about ten minutes, it took a women on the course over two hours...
Hope that helps a bit.
