No bridge too far for Help for Heroes

Monday, June 14, 2010

Help for Heroes Founder Bryn Parry OBE talks to editor and A Bridge Too Far fundraiser Joel Shenton

Help for Heroes has hardly been out of the news in recent weeks. As well as joining Prince William in opening new facilities at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court, founders Bryn and Emma Parry were made Officers of the British Empire (OBEs) in the Queen's birthday honours.

Bryn says his first reaction upon receiving the OBE was that it was "very embarrassing". "It's very awkward when you consider all the things that other people have been doing," he says.

There's no real need for the modesty, however. From its beginnings "in a tin hut in Tidworth" in October 2007, Help for Heroes has gone on to raise £54m to help wounded service personnel – that includes £12m in the four months since Defencemanagement.com last spoke to Parry.

The charity has used the simplicity of its "exactly what it says on the tin" name to focus a groundswell of public support for service personnel. When it comes to fundraising, the charity keeps its focus on to the men and women in uniform who choose to serve their country, regardless of the war.

Help for Heroes was launched in the wake of a visit to Birmingham's Selly Oak hospital in 2007. Parry had set his mind on organising a 300-man bike ride to raise money to improve facilities – ultimately hoping to build a swimming pool at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court. The stumbling blocks he met along the way led Bryn and his wife Emma to take the initiative and, after several discussions chaired at a local pizza restaurant, set up Help for Heroes.

The charity has continued to stage big bike rides, and the most recent, in May this year, was the Big Battlefield Bike Ride, which has raised over £1m.

In September, Parry will be leading another ride. The A Bridge Too Far bike ride will see 200 sponsored riders move through Belgium and The Netherlands visiting some of the major battle sites of Operation Market Garden. Riders will cover 350 miles over five days following parts of the route of XXX Corps. The ride gets its name from the title of the 1977 film, inspired by Lieutenant General Frederick Browning, who is reported to have said of the bridge at Arnhem: "I think we may be going a bridge too far."

The A Bridge Too Far bike ride will be the first time that the charity has organised two major cycling events in one year. The reason for this, Parry says, is the over-demand for the previous ride, but even though there are less cyclists on this ride, he still hopes to raise over £600,000 from the event. The cyclists involved will come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and include injured British service personnel.

"Inevitably there will be quite a few people with a parachute regiment or Guards background, because it was the Guards making their way towards Arnhem," says Parry. "But we'll have - as normal - people from all walks of life: we have builders, we have merchant bankers, we have former servicemen; we have various different people.

"The key to this one is that it's the first time we've had American wounded riding with us. We're having people who've been wounded in the services in America and they're coming across and making up a team who will ride alongside our British wounded team."

The ride begins in Brussels on 14 September. "We're riding out to Waterloo then to Leuven and up to Antwerp, where my uncle John - John Painter, who was wounded in 1944 - will come and talk to us about being wounded as a young 19-year-old with the 8th Rifle Brigade," Parry explains.

The Leuven to Antwerp leg will follow the route taken by the 11th Armoured Division, and riders will visit the remains of the concentration camp at Breendonk.

The third day of riding goes from Antwerp to Eindhoven, following in the footsteps of the British Army's XXX Corps and elements of the American 82nd Airborne division. The ride heads north east to Nijmegen and, finally, Arnhem.

"We'll start at Eindhoven where Joe Vandeleur launched the ride, and we're hoping for one of the Vandeleur family to come along and talk to us there," says Parry. "Then we run up through the bridges and obviously we've got American connections with our riders, so that'll be particularly poignant - especially on the bridge at Nijmegen.

"Then we're back and do the final ride from Nijmegen to Arnhem to watch the parachute jump on the heath."

Major Robert Cain was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions during the Battle of Arnhem, where he saw off German tanks with his Piat anti-tank weapon. His daughter, Frances Clarkson will give a talk to riders arriving in Arnhem about her father's actions. With an itinerary like this, it's no wonder Parry describes the 350-mile journey as "inspirational" for the riders.

"There will be more happening that it's nice to keep a secret," he says. "On the last ride we had a Spitfire fly over us on the ship, which was just an amazing moment. To arrive in Dover and have a Spitfire do loop-de-loop over us was beautiful. So there are various things I try and put in for riders'… delectation."

After the ride is finished, Parry has the charity's third anniversary to look forward to, and he has set the target of having raised £60m in three years. It sounds astronomical until you realise the successes the charity has had so far, but even with £54m raised, there are no shortage of worthy projects for the money to be spent on.

"The big thing we are working on at the moment is the personnel recovery centres: Edinburgh, Catterick, Colchester, Tidworth and one in Plymouth for the Royal Navy; all needing a lot of money," says Parry. "We've earmarked £20m for the army part of it and probably another £5m for the navy part. But we've also got what we call individual recovery plans, so the whole project is likely to cost us somewhere between £40-£50m.

"We've also got a quick reaction fund which provides individual support for the wounded and we're supplying the money, we're having it managed by the benevolent funds like the Soldiers' Charity or the Royal Marine charity. That's another big fund for when people need individual support to create a wet room, to convert a house or to give them a bit of specialist kit.

"We just paid for new sockets for a man who left the army four years ago and his sockets weren't working," he adds. "We paid for him to have a new set of sockets for his C-legs and where for some reason it wasn't working for him we've been able to transform his life. But again, that needs a lot of money."

The charity's 'money in, money out' philosophy means that the bulk of funds raised are accounted for as soon as they are collected. The charity is not storing money and debating how to spend it. As a result of this, Parry is confident in saying: "as need arises, we can help."

Defencemanagement.com editor Joel Shenton will be taking part in the A Bridge Too Far bike ride. If you would like to sponsor him or make a donation to Help for Heroes you can do so via: Justgiving.com or Bmycharity.com. All funds raised will go directly to Help for Heroes.