AS the rest of us enjoy our summer holidays, one ex-serviceman will spend almost half of August completing a gruelling challenge to raise money for veterans.

Graham Stobbs, 48, from central Swindon, will set off on a 222 kayaking trip over 14 days from Dungeness in Kent to northern France. He is hoping to raise £250,000 to open a place for veterans to be given help readjusting to civilian life after their service.

“I am starting to look forward to the trip now,” said Graham, who will sets off on August 11.

“It’s been a funny old year training-wise because I wasn’t able to get out on the waterways probably until about a month ago, because of Covid. But I can’t put it off for a year. Veterans need help now. ”

He is the man behind the Veterans’ Hub Swindon – a Facebook community he set up after his own mental health issues spiralled when he left the army.

Graham completed a tour of Northern Ireland in the early 1990s. He served in the village of Crossmaglen in south Armagh with the 3rd battalion the Royal Green Jackets in 1991 and 1992 when he was 19. The area was considered so dangerous the army had to be flown in by helicopter.

“Veterans are not all old men,” Graham said. “They’re often young people who have half their lives ahead of them and they come out of the forces and there’s no support for them.

“Veterans deserve to have something that’s theirs because at the moment they have no physical representation in Swindon,” he said.

So far £2,000 has been raised for the cause.

He said: “The problem with mental health is it doesn’t work 9-5 Monday to Friday. More often you get problems when you finish work, go home, you’re on your own and everything starts flooding back. So people need somewhere to go to get help 24/7.”

Graham will complete a 29 mile sprint across the channel, before a further 10 hours of kayaking each day as he follows the coast of France down to the Pegasus Bridge War Memorial and finally completes the challenge at Point Du Hoc.

“One of the highlights will be getting to Pegasus Bridge and laying a wreath there,” Graham said. “I’ll probably be quite emotional, humble, and proud because that’s where my regiment landed as part of the Normandy landings.

“I’ll be taking my beret, which I’m going to wear for the first time since I left the army. That will be a big personal moment for me,” he said.

He added: “I’d like to say a massive thank you to all our supporters and donors. There’s a huge population of veterans in Wiltshire and let’s get the message out there that it’s ok not to be ok.”

To donate visit: justgiving.com/crowdfunding/221-mile-kayak