PLEASE SUPPORT THIS WORTHY CAUSE

Two retired RAF personnel, with nearly 90 years Regular and Reservist service between them, will walk an average of 26 miles a day for 12 days, supporting The National Caribbean Monument Charity (TNCMC) fundraising.  

The TNCMC is seeking to raise funds to build a monument at the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA), in remembrance of the Afro-Caribbean Servicemen and women who made the ultimate sacrifice fighting in support of the United Kingdom during the last 200 years.   
The sum required is in excess of £400,000.

Flight Lieutenant Wayne Howell, a 65 year old pensioner with 48 years Service and Flight Sergeant Stephen ‘Walt’ Disney, with nearly 42 years, respectively, will attend the daily Remembrance Service at Alrewas, location of the NMA, on Friday 8th October 2021. The walkers will travel over to Northern France and Belgium, take part in the Last Post ceremony at Menin Gate, Ypres, then commence walking back to the NMA, 10-22 October. Each day the walkers will visit at least 2 war memorials of relevance to the Afro-Caribbean community.   With the support of Luther Blisset, the black former England footballer, the return walk to the NMA will incorporate visits along the route to several professional football clubs, who we hope will support this cause.

In a previous fundraiser held in October 2020, Wayne and Walt walked from Ayr (Walter Tull childhood & Army Officer Training location) on the West Scottish Coast to the NMA (320 miles), #From Ayr to Eternity (NMA). Although the walk was comfortably completed, the fundraising was defeated by Covid-19; it is hoped that this 2021 October Black History month event will be a successful fundraiser. 

 Since the recent acknowledgement by the British Government that not all Afro-Caribbean fighters who gave their lives in the First World War were afforded a marked grave and headstone by the War Graves Commission, one of the aims of this Pilgrimage will be laying wreaths in the memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice, but were not given the respect they fully deserved. The pilgrimage also offers the opportunity on Day Two for Pauline Milnes, TNCMC vice Chair, to lay a wreath on the grave of Private Herbert Morris at Poperinge Cemetery in Belgium.  Private Morris, of Jamaican origin, was recently posthumously pardoned in 2006, but had been executed and shot at dawn as a First WW deserter on 20th September 1917. We now know that Private Morris had been suffering from Post-traumatic stress disorder, a mental health disease, and not from a lack of courage on the battlefield.