A FORMER Army nurse from Larkhill will march alongside 10,000 others during the Cenotaph Service on Remembrance Sunday as part of the largest ever group of veterans supported by Help for Heroes to attend.  

Amelia Cummings, 38, whose career included six months in Afghanistan where she was part of the Afghan medic mentoring team, will be honouring the proud history of military nursing at the annual event.  

As a nurse with Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, she was a Troop Commander at soldier Phase 1 training and a Deputy Matron at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst before joining Help for Heroes as a Veterans’ Community Nurse.

Amelia now provides health coaching, advocacy and direct community support to veterans to enable them to successfully engage with the NHS services in their local communities. 

She said: “Looking after soldiers and their families has always been a massive privilege and I can continue that role at Help for Heroes.

"Remembrance for me is not just thinking about those that lost their lives, but about those that are living with the physical and psychological injuries because of their service. This is why my job is so important to me.”

“I have been to the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gates in Ypres on several occasions, and to the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele in 2017 when I gave a reading from the diary of nurse who served there. Remembrance is also about recognising the importance of military nursing – even during the Great War many of the soldiers would not have survived their injuries without the nurses’ care,” said Amelia, who great-grandfather, Walter Wootten, was wounded in the Battle of the Somme and had to have an above knee amputation.

Help for Heroes has been supporting members of the Armed Forces community to live well after service for 15 years. In that time, the military charity has helped over 27,000 veterans and their families. 

Amelia will be among more than 20 veterans from Help for Heroes wearing distinctive tri-service colours when they march in the national Remembrance Sunday ceremony, held at the Cenotaph on Whitehall in London. 

David Hornsby, a Veterans’ Clinical Advisor at Help for Heroes, who has organised the charity’s largest ever group of veterans in attendance, added: “Remembrance is not just about one day – I think it’s all round for veterans, but the ceremonies on Remembrance Sunday are an incredibly poignant focus for me. 

“I was an Emergency Department nurse and was privileged to care for our wounded on operations, many of them experienced traumatic injuries that had previously been regarded as unsurvivable.”