Soapbox for June 2010
Soapbox
(The page for YOUR special causes, ideas, etc.)
On 1st October 2007, Bryn Parry of the Royal Green Jackets launched an appeal to provide extra and better facilities and support for our wounded service men and women returning from Afghanistan, a new charity called ‘Help for Heroes’.
Headley Court, the government run rehabilitation centre, near Epsom in Surrey, was once an Elizabethan Farmhouse, which was bought and extended into a large mansion and later used as the HQ for Canadian forces during the war, training engineers in the art of building air strips and trench systems.
Although this is a large building which already provided a hydrotherapy pool, there wasn’t a full size swimming pool, so patients had to be taken to the public pools in Leatherhead. Unfortunately, this resulted in some unpleasant encounters! The charity provided the money for a new on-site pool, which has now been built. Sadly, due to the increasing number of casualties, there is now a need to arrange accommodation for 30 more beds to add to the current 28.
Another objective was to try to raise funds to build three new Personal Recovery Centres across England and to extend, or replace, the one in Scotland. The charity has now successfully raised the necessary £20 million to begin the first one, which will be built at Colchester. These brand new facilities will not only have comfortable accommodation, but also all the latest gadgets and technology needed to provide excellent care for each individual, so that they can begin to rebuild their lives in the best possible way.
The money is also being used to provide accommodation for relatives coming to support and encourage their sons, daughters, husbands, or wives, as they begin to start on the long road to recovery. Families are also given money to go out for a meal together, as these wounded personal are often daunted by the prospect of being seen in public with their injuries.
It seems to me that if we expect men and women, some of them heartbreakingly young, to go out and risk their lives for our sakes, the least we can do for them is to provide the best possible help for them when and if they need it.
Should you wish to send a donation, the address is;
H4H,Unit 6,Aspire Business, Ordnance Road, Tidworth Hants SP9 7QD
Gill B.