The V.E. Day Anniversary Hard Routine Charity Tour May 2025

We are Lee and Doug, veterans of the British Army and the Yorkshire Regiment. Like most lads, we have struggled to let go of our military pasts, knowing that we will never again be that ally! As middle age approaches and the light has for the most part gone out on any opportunity for excitement, we have decided to embark on a masochistic journey of self-inflicted misery in the name of the greater good.

During 2024, Doug and I raised £3000 for the Royal Yorkshire Regiment Benevolent Fund by completing the Yorkshire Three Peaks challenge in 9 hours with a small group of veterans.

At the completion of both of those challenges, aside from the physical relief, it felt spiritually and mentally unreal to know that we were able to help local veterans by sacrificing our sweat and tears for a few hours.

With the three peaks, we had a list of grand plans in the hopes of raising a lot more money than we did. However, I later realised that due to the nature of our challenge, we were never going to raise more than a few grand. Social media and the internet absolutely groans at the seams with people doing similar walks for charity. Not a month goes by where one of your friends or family isn’t inviting you to donate to their walk via an online link. When we organised our Yorkshire three peaks effort, Just Giving was full to the brim with our exact challenge. We even had to re-arrange our departure date so that we didn’t overlap with some of the bigger charities, reducing our donation potential.

Therefore, this year, we have decided to inflict maximum misery on ourselves in the name of charity.

On May 1st 2025, we will embark upon the V.E. Anniversary Hard Routine Charity Tour. This will involve attempting to make our way from the Green Howard Museum in Richmond, UK, to the Green Howard memorial at Crépon, France, by May 7th, by any means necessary. We will complete this completely unsupported and will be subject to the following rules:

Rule 1 – The challenge will be complete within the boundaries of the laws of both England and France.

Rule 2 - We will have no access to money. In an emergency we will have a plan to gain access to funds.

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Rule 3 – Our means of survival will be carried with us throughout. This includes sleeping kit, water and food for 7 days. We can accept donations of food, shelter and travel from strangers, but our default is self-reliance.

Rule 4 – No single mode of transport can be used for more than 90 minutes. After this, we must either switch to another form of transport or travel on foot before resuming the same type of transport. Transport will be secured by the witty charm and bartering skills of our participants, or through the involvement of supporters, who can remotely pre-arrange ludicrous and odd forms of travel to keep us mobile. After 90 minutes in any form of transport, we must use another means of transport, or revert to moving by foot for the next 2 hours. If someome offers us a lift, we cannot simply hop out after 90 minutes and get into another vehicle for 90 minutes until we get to France. The point of this is that the challenge is not only a physical one, but one that relies on our initiative and our willingness to put ourselves out there in order to make things happen. This is not only a challenge in itself, but also incredibly entertaining.

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Rule 5 - If the support we receive is beyond all expectations and we land in France way ahead of time, we vow to make the last 3 days of our challenge a solely physical one, relying on human powered means to arrive at our location.

Rule 6- Each day for an hour, we will open up our social media pages to 'misery miles' challenges. This is where someone can offer a donation in return for something challenging, disgusting, ridiculous and hilarious. This can be things like walking backwards for a specified period of time, utilising a child's bike for a few miles, casevacing each other for a mile or leopard crawling. We reserve the right to choose which 'misery miles' challenge we do and we will not do a challenge that we haven't agreed to or that is outside of the 'misery miles' window, so save your donation until the challenge is agreed upon. This will be done via social media lives, on Facebook and Tik Tok etc.

Rule 7- We will be living in 'hard routine'. We will be eating cold scoff, sleeping outside with sleeping bags and ponchos, shitting in the woods and topping up our water supplies by whatever free means we can - asking pubs, knocking on doors, using water sources from the great outdoors.

*An emergency will be defined as an unforeseen incident involving accident or injury or criminal action from a third party that leads to accident or injury, the significant loss of property or to our significant disadvantaging within the challenge. An emergency will not be called because we are in bits.

**The only time rule 4 can be broken is when we are crossing the channel. The means by which we will do this segment of the trip is as yet unknown, and it would be ludicrous to hop off our transport because we have hit the 90 minute mark, and paddle the remaining way.

We will be live streaming the misery and taking donations throughout for 'misery miles', where people can drop us a few quid to see us take up horseback, cycle a pink bicycle with a basket on it, or wear a ridiculous outfit for a few miles.

We will be raising money for the following charities:

Combat Stress – Combat Stress is a UK charity dedicated to supporting veterans’ mental health. It provides free, specialist mental health services for former military personnel experiencing issues like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety. Through residential programs, therapy, peer support, and community outreach, Combat Stress offers tailored treatment and ongoing support to help veterans manage and recover from psychological trauma. The charity’s aim is to help veterans rebuild their lives by improving their mental well-being and helping them reintegrate into civilian life with resilience and support.

The Royal Yorkshire Regiment Benevolent Fund - The Royal Yorkshire Regiment Benevolent Fund provides essential financial assistance and support to past and present members of the Yorkshire Regiment and their families. This aid is aimed at helping veterans, serving personnel, and their dependents who are facing financial hardship, injury, illness, or other personal challenges. The fund may cover costs related to medical needs, home adaptations, debt relief, or emergency living expenses, supporting individuals as they transition to civilian life or recover from difficult circumstances. Through this assistance, the fund seeks to uphold the well-being and dignity of those who have served in the Yorkshire Regiment. The fund also assists those who served within the founding regiments of the modern Yorkshire Regiment – The Green Howards, The Duke of Wellingtons and the Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire.

Follow us on the following social media channels to keep up to date on our efforts:

Instagram: @go1nghardxix

TikTok: @go1nghardxix

YouTube: @HardRoutineXIX

On Facebook, follow our page, 'V.E Hard Routine Charity Tour 2025'.