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My name is Tasty Smith and have a ponytail which I have grown since leaving the Fleet Air Arm in 1993, so I have not had my hair cut in 16 years. Mind you most of it has gone from up top!
The reason I am doing a headshave is to raise money for St Dunstan's, a charity held dear by the Fleet Air Arm Field Gun Crew Association, of which I am a member. The headshave is planned to take place on Wednesday, 21st October 2009 (Trafalgar Day).
St Dunstans is involved in looking after servicemen who were blinded and sometimes maimed in the two great wars and other conflicts since, ie, Northern Ireland, Korea, Gulf, etc. I ran Field Gun for the first time in 1975 and every year after the Royal Tournament at Earls Court had finished, some of us volunteered to look after these gents for a week in their annual summer sojourn to HMS Daedalus in Lee on Solent, Hampshire.
We were known as 'guide dogs' and were paired up with two of the St Dunstaners for the duration. They would take part in allsorts of activities including archery. Many visits were planned as they took in places where they could meet up with old friends they had met over the years. This was quite a social week and the St Dunstaners were an absolute joy to be with. All the guys we looked after are all now dead, the last one this year whom I helped look after. Nowadays it is all the modern conflict victims that we are looking after.
Even though Field Gun at the Royal Tournament has ceased 10 years ago, some ex-members serving or retired still give up their time to host them at HMS Sultan in Gosport, just a few miles down the road from where we used to originally look after them.
This is the reason why I have chosen to fundraise and support St Dunstans.
