Fundraising champion John Thompson is about to take on his next challenge for charity.
The 78 year old has already raised £60,000 for good causes over the last few years and now he will walk 50 miles to help fellow veterans.
The ex-army piper, formerly of the 1st Battalion Royal Highland Fusiliers, will step out once again on May 15.
John, a tenant at Bield Retirement Housing at Craigengar Park in Craigshill, has been raising money for charity over the last 48 years and this time he will walk 50 miles over five days for the Royal British Legion Scotland (Legion Scotland).
June will see the legion mark its centenary and John said that he wanted to help because Legion Scotland has not been getting as much support this year due to the pandemic.
He explained: “Legion Scotland provides all types of assistance to their 23,124 members in 38 branches throughout Scotland. They organise a lot of comradeship events, trips to war grave cemeteries, remembrance parades and much more.
“There is a small team of 10 people who have their own pension advocacy teams fighting for our veterans’ disablement pensions and they have, in the last year, won more than £1million in total in payment to our veterans community support providing more than 3227 different types of support.
“It would be great if all of the 23,124 veterans gave a donation to my Justgiving page on my Facebook, their motto; Service not Self.”
John has been raising money for good causes for nearly 60 years.
Most recently, in 2019, he presented cheques for £3067 to both Pathways and Eliburn Support Services after he
took the plunge and abseiled from the Forth Rail Bridge.
Before that, in 2017 he completed a half mile swim in aid of six local care centres that help elderly people with dementia.
To donate visit https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/john-thompson56.
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