TWO assistant site managers from the Southwest have raised more than £1,000 for charity after completing the Hadrian’s Wall Challenge.

Richard Hasell from Bude, and Paul Caers from Tavistock have completed the Hadrian’s Wall Challenge for the Armed Forces charity, SSAFA.

The pair, who work for house-building company Vistry Group walked 84 miles along the ancient structure, travelling from east coast to west coast. They also clocked up some extra steps to round up their total distance to 90 miles. 

Vistry’s charity of the year - SSAFA - supports serving personnel, veterans and their families in their time of need. It is the UK’s oldest national tri-service military charity. 

A spokesperson for the charity explained: “Addiction, relationship breakdown, debt, homelessness, post-traumatic stress, depression and disability are all issues that can affect our members of our Armed Forces community. Many of these problems only become apparent when an individual has to leave their life in the Forces and join ‘Civvy Street’. SSAFA is committed to helping our brave men and women overcome these problems, and rebuild their lives.” 

Ex-serviceman Paul, 39, who lives in Tavistock, commented: “We completed the walk in a moving time of 25 hours and 48 minutes and feel very proud to have raised over £1,000 for such a worthwhile cause. We’d trained a lot during weekends and were very stiff and sore the morning after, but we loved every minute of it!” 

Richard, 37, is from Bude and is currently involved in the building The Cornish Quarter in Wadebridge. He added: “It was a fantastic experience to walk across Hadrian’s Wall and take in the stunning scenery. However, it also gave us plenty of time to reflect on the work SSAFA does to help the Armed Forces and made us appreciate the work required to build the wall, almost 2,000 years ago. We feel very proud.” 

Despite the scale of such a task, Richard and Paul are not first timers when it comes to charity challenges, as last year the duo completed the Three Peaks Challenge in 22 hours and 35 minutes and raising more money for Alzheimer’s Society.