20/12/2025
This letter isn’t just for me, but every Veteran, who wonders if what they’re doing now still counts.
Letters hit differently for various reasons, but the one guarantee is, our emotions will always be involved and this one, well, with this one the emotions are high and it stopped me in my tracks.
Receiving a personal letter of thanks from, Rt Hon John Healey MP, Secretary of State for Defence, presented to me by, Mike Reader MP Northampton South, genuinely means more than I can easily put into words.
Not because it’s from Westminster.
Not because it’s got an official crest at the top.
But because it recognises my service, past and present, and reminds of all the many complicated emotions and messed up memories that goes along with it. Those of which, only Veterans could ever relate.
I served for 14 years in the Army. Like many Veterans, I didn’t leave the forces with a neat, heroic ending. I left changed. Injured. Having to relearn who I was, to forge a new identity and figure out where I fit in a world, that suddenly felt very different and cold.
The transition is long, brutal and lonely. For too many of us it seems, we seem, invisible. And over a decade later, I'm still finding my way.
To have my work acknowledged as a veteran, not just as a campaigner or content creator, hits deep. It tells me that the values drilled into us in uniform — service, integrity, loyalty and getting the job done even when it’s uncomfortable — didn’t disappear when the kit came off, they just evolved.
The work I do now through Disabled Adventurer and Access Outdoors comes directly from that military mindset:
👉 Community is everything
👉 Leave no one behind
👉 Improvise, adapt, overcome
👉 Serve something bigger than yourself
To have this recognised at a national level is incredibly humbling.
I also want to say this clearly:
Mike Reader MP didn’t just “turn up for a photo”. He has consistently backed me, supported the work, and understands the importance of veterans continuing to serve their communities in new ways. That matters. A lot.
This letter isn’t just for me. It’s for every veteran who wonders if what they’re doing now still counts. It does. Your service didn’t end when you left the forces, it just changed shape.
I’ll keep pushing. I’ll keep challenging barriers. And I’ll keep showing what’s possible when the Disabled and Veteran communities are supported, not sidelined.
Grateful. Proud. Very emotional 😢