How Veteran's Aid can help the soldiers of misfortune

Words: Glyn Strong                          Pictures: Richard Baker

Many Armed Forces veterans find it difficult to reintegrate into society. Some end up homeless and without hope. For these men and women, the charity Veterans Aid is a life-saver. Glyn Strong visits its headquarters and hostel.

Adrian Eddison-Stone still has vivid memories of the night he became homeless. 'Rough sleeping in the infantry is not the same as rough sleeping on the streets,' the 42-year-old former Coldstream Guards lance corporal reflects. 'I was f***ing scared - not about the future, but about what was going to happen to me immediately. For the first couple of weeks, I stayed around Chelsea Bridge, because it was quiet there. There was no one around to interfere with you.'

Adrian Eddison-Stone, a former Coldstream Guardsman, is one of 57 ex-servicemen currently living at Veterans Aid's New Belvedere House hostel

The son of a Royal Navy fleet chief - 'a hard act to follow' - Eddison-Stone left school aged 16 and signed up for the infantry. After basic training, he joined the Corps of Drums and became involved with ceremonial duties in an environment that seemed a million miles away from civilian life. He served for eight years, finally leaving in 1989 and drifting in and out of various sales jobs.
Two years later, after the first Gulf War had started, he re-enlisted with his old battalion and was soon deployed to Saudi Arabia, initially with responsibility for handling prisoners of war. He found the going hard. 'It was really scary, in the middle of the desert with alerts going off all the time, Scud missiles going over - everything happening so fast.'

Eddison-Stone's was one of the last regiments to return home, and he spent a further four years serving in Northern Ireland, Germany and Bosnia. He got married, but the relationship quickly began to fall apart. 'The girl I married made it clear that she didn't want to be part of Army life.' He made plans to return to the civilian world again, but not in time to save his marriage. He had lost everything - his military family, his wife, he had even become estranged from his brother. With nowhere to live, he spent his first six weeks out of the Army sleeping in his car on Brighton seafront.

Yet Eddison-Stone is one of the lucky ones. While taking refuge at the Passage, a Christian day centre for homeless people in London, he spotted a poster on the wall for the charity Veterans Aid. It runs New Belvedere House, a hostel for the ex-Service homeless in Limehouse, east London. A nondescript building on the outside, the inside of New Belvedere is smart, spotless and more reminiscent of a sergeants' mess than a hostel.

Eddison-Stone arrived last year with just his guitar and the clothes he stood up in. He is now one of 57 military veterans living there. People stay for varying amounts of time, graduating either directly to homes of their own or via the adjacent Rectory, a halfway house made up of communal flats where residents get to experience independence without isolation.

Eddison-Stone becomes emotional when he recalls the reception he received at New Belvedere. 'I can't describe it. I suddenly realised that there was somewhere for me to go. I've seen hostels and this is not like any other. Something about it just shouts, "This is a safe environment".

Someone who shares that view is 55-year-old Martin Riley, the son of a regimental sergeant major in the Royal Engineers. His childhood was spent in Army camps and he admits to enlisting to get some kind of recognition from his father. He worked in bomb disposal and mine clearance; dangerous and exacting work. 'I don't know why - I'm certainly not a hero,' he reflects. 'It seemed exciting at the time, though.' Drugs proved to be Riley's undoing and the start of a spiral into addiction. Today he is off heroin and although he hated the hostel at first, he now describes it as 'an absolute bloody life-saver'.

New Belvedere is the focal point of Veterans Aid, a specialist London-based charity with a rad ically different approach to helping members of its military family. It may be a minor player alongside monolithic institutions such as the Royal British Legion, but it is rapidly becoming the most dynamic driver of change in the battle to honour the military covenant, a historic government pledge, first drafted in the 19th century, to support and provide care to all British soldiers, sailors and airmen and women in return for the sacrifices they have made for their country.

A groundswell of opinion, from the media, senior military figures and politicians, has criticised the Ministry of Defence for abandoning vulnerable ex-soldiers. Last September, the Conservative leader David Cameron spoke out about the covenant in the House of Commons, stating that it was 'an unbreakable common bond of identity, loyalty and responsibility, which has sustained the Army throughout its history. Are we fulfilling it today? I believe we would be very hard pushed to answer "Yes".

An investigation published in March 2007 revealed that more than 21,000 full-time servicemen and women and reservists who had served in Iraq suffered from anxiety and depression as a result of their experiences. A not insignificant number of those end up sleeping rough, and that is something that Hugh Milroy, a former RAF wing commander and military welfare specialist, the chairman of the cross-agency Ex-Services Action Group and the chief executive of Veterans Aid, is not prepared to tolerate. He is a believer in immediate and enduring solutions for all homeless servicemen and women.

The Combined Homeless and Information Network (Chain) estimates that about six per cent of all homeless people are ex-Service. Others speculate that the real figure is much higher, though Milroy has no time for statistics. 'We constantly get the media asking us to confirm its view that 25 per cent of the homeless are ex-Service,' he says, as we chat inside Veterans Aid's modest administrative headquarters near Victoria Station. 'It is almost as if they want this claim to be true and that saddens me greatly.'
What matters to him is the welfare of those who have served their country and now need help to cope with life away from the Armed Forces.

'I get angry when I hear people saying that rough sleeping will be ended by 2012,' Milroy says. 'That's almost laughable. Homelessness is related to poverty and poverty is on the increase in this country. Some of our veterans will inevitably be in that group - so what will the Government be doing for them? They need to do something genuine for veterans to secure their future. No veteran should be forgotten or lost in modern Britain.'

Formerly the RAF's senior welfare specialist, and the architect of its groundbreaking community support network, Milroy earned his PhD researching the causes and prevention of military rough sleeping. The 1,400 or so calls for help that Veterans Aid receives each year come from all over the country; this is not a 'London problem'. Only about 15 per cent of those whom Veterans Aid helps have a history of mental health problems. Soldiers, sailors and airmen and women fall victim to homelessness gradually, for a variety of prosaic reasons.

Kashim Adeniran, an ex-private in the Pioneer Corps, is self-sufficient thanks to Veterans Aid

Causes range from the invisible, such as psychological or behavioural disorders or loneliness, to the highly visible, such as drug or alcohol abuse, family breakdown, poverty or physical injury. Cold and hunger can be the least of a rough sleeper's problems; violence and struggles for existence are commonplace. Milroy explains that he deals with a former Royal Marine who regularly sells his body for sex to fund his drug habit, while Eddison-Stone points out that those on the streets are either prey or predators.

Milroy himself is a 52-year-old working-class Scot who does not mince words. A small man with neat grey hair, a keen sense of humour and a low tolerance for bureaucrats, his studies for a BA in theology introduced him to the subject of pastoral care. After that he joined the RAF, reaching the rank of wing commander in less than 11 years. Milroy served in the first Gulf War and admits that leaving the military was not easy. 'It takes time to adjust, but thank goodness most manage to make the transition successfully - sooner or later.'

On his return to Britain, he led a team of 65 staff providing welfare services to more than 4,000 RAF personnel and their families, and was also responsible for managing the return of those who had served in the Gulf. He has been the head of Veterans Aid since November 2005.

Veterans Aid, which until last November was known as the Ex-Service Fellowship Centres, began life as a canteen and recreation room for destitute ex-servicemen, which opened in Lambeth, south London, in January 1932. Today, Milroy explains, it is unashamedly an operational charity unburdened by bureaucracy or costly overheads.

Milroy manages the charity's website himself to save money. Food, accommodation and new clothes are provided at point of need. What it saves in 'corporate comforts', it funnels directly into practical expenditure to ensure that physical and emotional triage is a given - the 'extras' that go towards restoring the veterans' self-respect and dignity are unquantifiable.

Alongside Milroy, the eclectic Veterans Aid team includes Geoffrey Cardozo, MBE, a former cavalry colonel, John Boyle, a sponsored social worker from the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA), Debbie Langdon, an outreach worker and the wife of a former Welsh Guardsman, plus a military psychiatrist and a barrister who both work as volunteers. The skills blend is diverse and powerful.

Over at New Belvedere, residents come under the jurisdiction of Pat O'Connor, MBE, a no-nonsense northerner. 'We're all afraid of Pat,' Bob Gordon, a reformed alcoholic, says. A former physical training instructor with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, Gordon, 58, now sells the Big Issue in Covent Garden and lives in the Rectory. His fall from grace is not untypical. After he left the Army in 1990, his 'social drinking' got out of hand. Gordon recalls coming out of rehab to be met by his regimental sergeant major bearing 'a glass of whisky and my divorce papers'. Today he is lithe, upbeat and employed. He is slightly apprehensive about living alone but with IT skills under his belt, a college course in the pipeline and the knowledge that Veterans Aid is there in the background, he is optimistic. His respect for O'Connor is echoed by everyone; many backsliders speak of their shame at having 'let Pat down'. And no wonder: if O'Connor says you are out, you are out.

Milroy tells me that Veterans Aid focuses on three things. 'The first is to have a place where veterans support veterans in a real and immediate way; it is about helping members of our family, the military family. The second is that we are completely non-judgmental. If you are one of us, and something has happened to drive you towards the streets, we will step in to help - regardless of who you are, or what you've done. Thirdly, we are very determined to provide help and guidance on a national basis to veterans themselves or others working with vulnerable and homeless veterans. This is a new role in homelessness prevention and we're already well along that path.'

The human dramas that play out daily in the Veterans Aid headquarters sabotage any chance of an uninterrupted interview with Milroy. He pauses our conversation to take a phone call from a colleague who explains that Eric, an ex-soldier who regularly drops in at Victoria, has forgotten to take his medication and is causing a disturbance in a nearby cafe. Immediately, someone is dispatched to 'sort it out'.

In an adjacent room sits Vincent, who had been explaining to Milroy why he cannot face returning to his family in Africa. Currently of no fixed abode, he was recently discharged from the Royal Navy - not because he failed to make the grade, but because he felt afraid to admit to being homosexual in an environment he found hostile and oppressive. He is tearful, desperate, homeless and broke.

We talk about some of Veterans Aid's other 'clients': John, who has 109 offences involving crack cocaine to his name; Dave, whose smell alone could stop a rocket-propelled grenade in mid-air; Sandy Ulrich, who not long ago was dysfunctionally alcoholic. Most charities would find it difficult to provide these people with practical help - but not Veterans Aid, for whom Ulrich is a singular success story.

After leaving the RAF, Ulrich, a 55-year-old senior aircraftman from Pitlochry in Perthshire, attempted to run a pub, which ended in alcoholism and financial ruin. 'I was drinking a litre and a half of Bacardi a day, seven days a week,' he recalls in disbelief. Now he is not only dry, employed and living independently, but is also one of the mainstays of New Belvedere and one of O'Connor's most trusted assistant managers.

Sandy Ulrich, an ex-RAF aircraftman, now works at New Belvedere where he was once a resident

My chat with Milroy is interrupted by the arrival of Ray, which sparks immediate action. A heroin user whose gaunt face and shabby appearance is instantly recognised on the blurry screen of the video entry system, Ray is admitted quickly; once inside, he collapses. In clear distress, he clings to Milroy for comfort.

There is no lecture, no forms to fill in and no calls to the police - only the most practical questions. 'When did you last eat? When did you see the doctor? Where are you staying?' A bacon sandwich is proffered, followed by a gentle inquisition about his latest failed rehab. Milroy is kind, but honest. 'If you go on like this, you are going to die.'

At the Union Jack Club in Waterloo, a very different members' club for ex-servicemen, the Veterans Aid's chairman and president, Brigadier Johnny Rickett, is telling me about the time, 18 months ago, when he 'lost' half an hour of his life. He had just completed a television interview about the Falkland Islands, where as a lieutenant colonel commanding the Welsh Guards he lost 32 men, when it was as if a switch tripped in his brain.

'I wasn't in the real world. And I still, frankly, don't know where I was for half an hour from leaving my office until my wife came to collect me. I was re-living the Falklands all over again, which I've never done before.'

Disturbed by the episode, Rickett sought help and was advised that his 'condition' was caused by one of three things: lack of breakfast, use of beta blockers, or post-traumatic stress disorder. It was a defining moment. He knew that if he could remain traumatised by events that occurred two and a half decades ago, there would be plenty of others in similar - and much worse - situations. 'I pray for my men every night,' he says. 'If this could happen to me 25 years after the event, I can't imagine what some of them must have gone through.'

The Ministry of Defence acknowledges that a minority of ex-servicemen struggle to adapt to life away from the military, but plays down the problem. 'The majority of people who leave the Armed Forces each year make a successful transition to civilian life,' a spokesman says. 'But we recognise some are vulnerable to homelessness.'

The veterans minister Derek Twigg recently visited New Belvedere House to see the reality of life for homeless ex-servicemen and women trying to rebuild their lives. He was impressed by the support that Veterans Aid provides. 'It is unusual for someone to be homeless after they leave the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence goes to great lengths to help the 23,000 people who leave the Service each year to prepare them for their return to civilian life, including finding accommodation,' he said. 'We work closely with all interested charities to both prevent new Service-leavers becoming homeless and to provide an effective safety net for existing vulnerable and homeless ex-Service personnel.'

But what about those who slip through the net? It is 7am, just a few degrees above freezing and barely light. Westminster's street sweepers are still at work while early commuters emerge from Charing Cross Tube station. Inspector Malcolm Barnard and his team of eight officers from the Metropolitan Police Safer Streets Homeless Unit are on their daily 'wake and shake'. Barnard has close links with Veterans Aid and now routinely asks vulnerable homeless people if they have ever served in the Armed Forces. If the answer is yes they are immediately directed towards the sanctuary of Veterans Aid.

We are looking for one man in particular, whose overnight home is nearly always the same stretch of pavement, within easy reach of a McDonald's breakfast. At 7.15 we find him, just south of Covent Garden. A former gunner who served in Korea, Tommy is 74 and an alcoholic. His craggy face is partly obscured by a flat cap and he is huddled inside a sleeping bag. Predictably passers-by give him a wide berth. Barnard nudges him awake to make sure he is all right. Tommy sits up, rubs his eyes and says, 'Good morning,' before taking a quick swig from a near-empty half bottle of whisky and preparing a roll-up.

Although Tommy claims never to have been ill in his life, Barnard is concerned about his health and his safety. 'We need to get you into a shelter; we can't have you out here like this. What about Veterans Aid?' Tommy politely declines the offer and explains that he needs to go for a pee. 'But I'm not telling you where.'

Barnard and his team see many rough sleepers during their patrols and on average one a month is referred to - and helped by - Veterans Aid. However, like Tommy, not everyone is ready or willing to be helped. Not everyone can be helped either. Last year, Veterans Aid provided nearly 20,000 nights of shelter for ex-servicemen and women. Milroy is convinced that with additional funding, it could do considerably more.

Martin Riley, a former bomb disposal expert with the Royal Engineers, said New Belvedere iwas a 'life saver'

Major General Sir Evelyn Webb-Carter, the controller of the Army Benevolent Fund, which provides financial and practical assistance for soldiers, former soldiers and their families, believes that with adequate support Veterans Aid could transform the way ex-servicemen and women are helped. His organisation provides some of Veterans Aid's vital funding and has given it carte blanche to spend whatever it needs on finding beds for veterans who are sleeping rough.

More than 260 British soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since those conflicts began, and more than 4,000 seriously injured. But Sir Evelyn is 'really worried' about the growing number of 'mental causalities'. He also believes that public support for former soldiers has waned since the beginning of the war in Iraq. As the Services shrink in size, there is no shared experience of war on the home front; the toll taken on those who serve is largely unappreciated. Others agree.

'The fight in southern Iraq or in Helmand is, both literally and figuratively, thousands of miles away from the average person living in Britain,' the shadow defence secretary Dr Liam Fox says. 'Consequently, unless you have a close friend or family member in the Armed Forces, the general public has a reduced interest in the welfare of our troops because the war does not impact on their day-to-day lives.'

Milroy believes that it is essential that the veterans themselves be given a voice. 'The time is right for a national debate about what it means to be a veteran in Britain today,' he says. 'We need to ask veterans what they expect from their country: this shouldn't be the view of any particular ex-Service charity or government think-tank, but the voice of veterans themselves. And then we need a clear statement from the Government about what they intend to do about those needs.'

No one doubts the immense psychological pressure faced by the men and women currently serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, whose lives are constantly under threat for the duration of their six-month deployment, undergoing prolonged fighting for days or weeks at a time. The current operational tempo leaves little time for service personnel to go home and come to terms with their experiences.

And while a report published by King's College London last year suggested that the Ministry of Defence's policy on tour intervals was right, it conceded that the Services' own 'harmony guidelines' (which balance rest and recuperation with deployment) were not always being met. The report concluded that a quarter of those who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq develop mental problems.

Perhaps surprisingly, the number of homeless ex-servicemen has not been swelled by the hundreds of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffering from mental trauma. 'We're not seeing evidence of it - yet,' Milroy says, 'but we're well aware that we could do, and we're ready. We find that many people come to us several years after discharge. We are helping people who have served in the Second World War, Northern Ireland, the Gulf and the Balkans.'

Someone with practical and clinical experience of dealing with this delayed trauma is the milita ry psychiatrist Ian Palmer, who left the Army in 2003. Now a visiting professor at the Institute of Psychiatry, he is also a volunteer at Veterans Aid. 'I was attracted to Veterans Aid because it was run by ex-Service personnel and was robust, military in its methods and focused on solving problems. The whole ethos of the organisation is based on respect for self and others and the positive military values of commitment, taking responsibility, persevering under adversity and working together.'

Private Kashim Adeniran, who served for three years with 5th/8th Royal Pioneer Corps, is one of hundreds who owe their new-found self-respect and self-sufficiency to Veterans Aid. He recalls his three years in the corps with pride but admits his transition to civilian life was hard. As the sole proprietor of Midas Touch Metal Polishing, he polishes door furniture and nameplates at some of London's most prostigious addresses. 'This is a safe house,' Adeniran tells me in Milroy's office. 'People who come to Veterans Aid are blessed.'