A young military veteran from Manchester will walk to the city from London in just five days to raise awareness of the challenges former forces personnel face when they return to civilian life.
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On Monday 5 December, Andrew Schofield, who served as a military police officer, will set off from the Cenotaph in London. He will cover a distance of 350 kilometres, walking alone and carrying his own kit and equipment, arriving at the Manchester Cenotaph on Friday 9 December. To make his challenge even tougher, Andrew will camp out each night.

An estimated 5 million veterans live in the UK. While most of the 15,000+ personnel who leave the forces each year have a successful transition to civilian life, a small but significant minority do not. Andrew is raising funds for Walking With The Wounded, the charity that supports those who served, and their families, to thrive.

His quest is part of Walking Home For Christmas, the organisation’s annual nationwide fundraising walking challenge to support its work across mental health, employment, volunteering and care coordination. Andrew explained: “This walk is a physical representation of my own and many other people’s mental health journeys. It’s tough, lonely, unpredictable and feels impossible to overcome.”

Andrew is one of many veterans who experienced mental health issues after leaving the forces. Now 33 years old, Andrew joined the British Army in 2009. He completed training to become a Military Police Officer and was posted to Northern Ireland. In 2012 he was attached to the Welsh Guards on Operation Herrick in Afghanistan.

In 2015, Andrew left the military to pursue a career in recruitment. Four years later he started to experience difficulties with his mental health.

He said: “I started to feel not quite myself. I’d just had my first daughter, I was a director for a recruitment company, I was playing rugby for my club that I’ve played with since I was a colt, I had a great set of friends and family, was in a loving relationship. On the outside looking in you would think, what’s wrong, how could you suffer with mental health?

“But for whatever reason, I started to withdraw. I would go to rugby, but I wouldn’t really speak to anybody. I stopped training, I stopped communicating, when people would message me I just wouldn’t message them back, and I just really withdrew. It got to the point where it started to have a huge negative impact on everything. I was crippled by a mixture of anxiety and depression.”

Having reached a desperately low point, a chance conversation Andrew had with his brother spurred him on to seek help.

Andrew said: “Out of nowhere he turned to me and said, I’ve been feeling really low recently, I’ve been really struggling mentally. And just that brief conversation with my brother made me feel so much better. I was thinking I can get better. I can do something about this.

“So, I spoke to more close friends and family members and started to get help. I reached out to the NHS and had some therapy, it took six to 12 months, but I felt so much better, almost like I was reborn. It was life-changing.

“I don’t think my brother realises the impact he had, just by being open with me. That was massive for me.”

Keen to share his own experiences and encourage more veterans – and others – to seek mental health support if they need it, Andrew approached Walking With the Wounded with the idea for the fundraising challenge.

He explained: “What I’m trying to do is show that I’ve been at the point of no return, and I’ve come back up and if anything, I’m a more well-rounded individual for going through this experience.”

Andrew is now in the advanced stages of training for his Walking Home For Christmas challenge. After weekday gym sessions, he completes a 10km walk while carrying a 20kg load in his backpack. At weekends he spends hours alone doing gruelling walks of 40-50km.

He said: “What I’m doing is ridiculous and it’s tough and it’s going to feel impossible. There’s a military saying, train hard fight easy, so if you train hard, hopefully, the actual event itself is a bit easier. You’ve got the momentum of the event itself, the adrenaline that will help spur me on and get me through, but absolutely up to now the worst bit of this is training for it.”

After setting off from the Cenotaph in London on Monday 5 December, Andrew’s route will take him through Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire, Warwickshire, West Midlands, Staffordshire and Cheshire. He will arrive at the Cenotaph in Manchester on Friday 9 December. Well-wishers can follow his progress and send him messages of support on social media using the hashtag #WalkWithAndy

Andrew’s arrival in Manchester coincides with Walking With the Wounded’s regional fundraising walk in the city. Two other mass participation walks are being held on the same day in Newcastle and London.

Sponsor Andrew Schofield and find out more about joining a regional walk by visiting https://www.walkinghomeforchristmas.com/