Coldstream Guards recreate 425-mile march

Jan 8 2010 by Brian Daniel, The Journal

“If we are doing nothing more than raise awareness of what we are doing out in Afghanistan, it will be a big success.

“All our limbs will be painful but we have got to be thankful that we have got limbs to hurt.”

Guardsman Danny Patterson, 23, from North Shields, has already served with the battalion in Afghanistan from 2007 to 2008.

The former John Spence Community High School pupil said: “It’s what I joined the army for. I really enjoyed how exciting it was to be on an operational tour.

“I’m happy to march to help my friends who are out in Afghanistan at the moment by generating awareness and support for them and their families.”

The stay in Berwick was significant as General Monck’s troops built the town’s parish church on their stop off there 350 years ago.

The Coldstream Guards have since been granted the freedom of Berwick, last exercising those rights with a parade through the town centre in March 2008.

On arrival in Berwick on Wednesday, the guardsmen attended a welcome service in the church, in which their regiment’s colours can still be seen.

As in 1660, they were greeted by town dignitaries and were addressed by its vicar, a former guardsman and now regiment chaplain Rev Alan Hughes, who gave them words of encouragement at the start of the march and hopes to be at its conclusion.

He said: “I am just so proud to be vicar of the church of our regiment and all these years on to be associated with them on this historic endeavour.”