Peaks challenge: £35,000 for Guards (From Andover Advertiser)

Peaks challenge: £35,000 for Guards

11:33am Tuesday 10th November 2009

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A TEAM with strong connections to the Welsh Guards scaled three mighty peaks in a day to raise more than £35,000 for servicemen wounded in Afghanistan.

They climbed Ben Nevis, in the Scottish Highlands, Scafell Pike, in the Lake District, and Mount Snowdon, in Wales, in 23 hours and 45 minutes.

Rhydian Vaughan, Basingstoke and Deane borough councillor for Bramley and Sherfield, drove the team 1,249 miles for the venture. He joked: “I never want to see that minibus ever again!”

Mr Vaughan, 61, who served with the regiment and left as a captain in 1978, added: “I had a new hip last year so I did the driving and we are proud to have completed this challenge for a |noble cause.

“The Battalion completed a rather brutal operational tour in Afghanistan, when they lost their Commanding Officer and six others.

“What you don’t hear about is the number of wounded guardsmen who have lost both legs.

“This is why we and countless others raise money to help our wounded.”

The walkers were Paul de Zulueta, Alun Powell, Nigel Hanbury, Julian Peel-Yates, Robin Farquharson and Regimental Lieutenant Colonel Sandy Malcolm OBE.

The Aldershot-based Battalion recently returned to their Hampshire barracks after a six-month tour, during which they lost Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe MBE, who became the most senior British Army officer to die in action since the Falklands when he was killed by a roadside bomb in Helmand province in July.

Anyone wishing to donate can go to justgiving.com/alexander-malcolm.

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