Helping Heroes

As some people have already noticed, a few weeks ago I added a widget to the blog which shows a fundraising page that we have set up on JustGiving (you can click here to visit it).

As we are going to wander 1000 miles up the length of the country, and as I’m hoping to give a modicum of entertainment by blogging it as we go, we thought that we would try to raise a few pennies for a worthy cause in the process and chose Help For Heroes.

Here’s how the charity describes itself:

“Help for Heroes was founded by Bryn and Emma Parry in October 2007 out of a desire to help the wounded Servicemen and women returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. The message of the charity is simple: We are strictly non political and non critical; we simply want to help. We believe that anyone who volunteers to serve in time of war, knowing that they may risk all, is a hero. These are ordinary people doing extraordinary things and some of them are living with the consequences of their service for life. We may not be able to prevent our soldiers from being wounded, but together we can help them get better.”

Despite being the least artistic person known to man, I put my best artistic hat on and came up with a t-shirt design, which was duly sent off to the printers. Here’s a close-up of Mick’s chest to show it off:

A t-shirt which will be cut up next week to make panels which will be attached to the back of our packs for the duration of the walk

The group photo, taken with the assistance of a tripod and a self-timer, wasn’t taken entirely seriously:

We’re trying to raise a modest amount for Help for Heroes on this walk. The current objective is £750, but it would be great if we could achieve £1000. We’re already well on our way to achieving that (thanks in the main to the very generous folks at Ferranti Technologies who responded tremendously when we rattled our charity bucket around their office last week).

So, if, in return for all of the witterings that I’m going to post over the next couple of months, any readers of this blog would like to throw a pound or two into the charity pot then that would be great.

(And, just to clarify, we are funding this walk and everything associated with it in its entirety. Every penny of the money raised (less JustGiving’s fee) will go direct to Help for Heroes.)