A charity abseil by Hampshire soldiers to raise funds for comrades injured in the line of duty has been cancelled due to the weather.
Troops from Hampshire’s army troop The Tigers were due to abseil down the 170 ft Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth but high winds have meant the stunt has been postponed.
A total of 40 people were due to take on the on the Spinnaker Tower challenge including friends and supporters of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment.
And among them was due to be double amputee Sgt Jay Baldwin, below, who was injured by an IED blast in Afghanistan in 2012 and will be the first veteran double amputee to abseil down the tower.
Also due to take part was the First Battalion’s former commanding officer, Lt Col James Coote, below, who grew up in Warsash, and his wife Sarah who has been a firm supporter of the PWRR Benevolent Fund.
Sarah said: “The game has changed out in places like Afghanistan. With IEDs and other devices, soldiers are suffering life-altering injuries.
“The injuries they are sustaining will affect them for the rest of their lives not just physically, but mentally as well. The whole basis of what we’re doing is to alleviate those and make their lives better.”
It was hoped the daring abseil would raise £10,000 – with £5,000 sponsorship already secured.
Fiona Mason, mother of ex-serviceman Paul, from Eastleigh, who served with the regiment on the frontline in Afghanistan, came up with the idea.
She said: “I thought it would be good to raise money for the regiment’s benevolent fund. When I went to Germany (where the regiment is based) and saw Paul’s friends who are injured and I wanted to help others like them.
“It just affects you and makes you think ‘it could be my son’ and the fund needs cash to help these soldiers.”
Nicknamed The Tigers, the regiment – which is currently based in Germany but will relocate to the Hampshire/Wiltshire border under the Army 2020 plan – recruits many of its officers and soldiers from Hampshire and across the south.
With a long, distinguished history, it has been involved in virtually every theatre of war since the Battle of Tangier in 1662.
It is also the most decorated of all British Army regiments, with 57 Victoria Crosses including the VC awarded to Sergeant Johnson Beharry in 2004 for his gallantry in Iraq.
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