"Eddies Epic Journey”

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Eddie-Coast

14 October 2013 at 21:58 

 

People keep asking me what I'm up to...

Who is this character with a bulging rucksack, stomping up hills and down dales? 

Well I've just decided to go public. I put the Union Jack up yesterday.

I'm walking the entire coast of Great Britain, hoping to raise money for ex-servicemen and women.

It’s hard for people in Civvi Street to understand the problems a lot of ex-service personnel experience after leaving the military.

I have suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) since finishing active service in Bosnia and Northern Ireland and have met many others in the same boat!

As a survivor of what has happened to me, I feel utterly compelled to make a difference...

I attempted this coastal walk a couple of years ago and had just completed a ground breaking course called The Warrior Programme, founded by Eva Hamilton (MBE). It was a course specifically designed for people like me with PTSD.

For the first time in my life, it showed me that there were other ways to tackle the demons that troubled me. I felt I had to give something back. At that time, however, I wasn’t mentally and physically prepared for the challenge that faced me and only got as far as Norwich, stopping due to injury. Now I am ready!

The money I raise will go to Veterans Aid. Anyone who sees me on my journey or reads this...please make a donation.

If everyone in the country donated a pound, not even the cost of a decent loaf of bread, there would be enough money to set this up and help so many more people in need.

Look at their website – www.veterans-aid.net – it’s an eye-opener. I have seen them doing this personally. They need funds and that is why I am on an epic walk along the length of Britain’s coastline.

I started in Exeter a few weeks ago, (26 August 2013), and that’s where I aim to finish – when, I am not quite sure...

Veterans Aid is a totally unsung and amazing little charity that looks after homeless ex-service men and women. It does this without fuss, providing more than 20,000 nights of accommodation a year to homeless veterans - many are young.

They are the ‘Accidents and Emergencies’ of the Armed Services charities and are too busy to do much more than get on with their work, which they do well, with kindness and awesome speed. 

Homeless ex-Servicemen and women, usually broken and destitute, come to see Veterans Aid from all over UK at their ‘drop-in’ centre near Victoria Station, in London. 

From there, begins a long and often painful path to regain their self-esteem, and to reintegrate into the community which many served bravely to protect.

This journey involves a period of rehabilitation at their own veterans’ hostel in the East End of London; a good place, with great people working there. When they are stronger they move on to their own flats and get a job.

Veterans Aid are doing all they can to get these guys back on their feet, fed, clothed, accommodated and stabilised at their hostel and treated for whatever is wrong with them. Some of them are slightly depressed, others are very seriously ill. Veterans Aid are badly in need of the funds to allow them to help.

 

Thank you 

Eddie