Lancashire Veterans Association provides care and support for military personnel

Veteran Harry Mills

The Lancashire Veterans Association (LVA) is a non-profit organisation, runby volunteers, that helps local service personnel and their families.

Harry Mills, Chairman of the LVA Committee, explained: “We realised that one support group was needed to deal with everything. That is to say, we were not going to solely hand out food parcels or advise bereaved families. We wanted to give any and every kind of help to acting or ex military personnel whenever they needed it.”

Mr Mills said: “Even though we go under the title of the Lancashire Veteran’s, we will help anyone, wherever they are from, if they come to us. All we need is an address and we will always do what we can to provide support.

“One thing that we get a lot of is people coming to us asking for money. We cannot help with financial problems because we don’t have any money to do that; everything is based on donations which are mainly put towards getting together the food parcels. What we can do however is direct those people in need of financial help to the correct place, so we offer support in that respect.”

Mr Mills has served in the army for most of his life and the proud veteran suggests: “We are local lads who have ‘been there, done that and got the t-shirt’. We know what we’re talking about and what sort of help the people that come to us are looking for.”

The association operates from the Heywood Pub in Heywood and was founded in 2008. They meet whenever they can and encourage anyone regardless of age, gender or status to get involved. The LVA give talks in local schools and hope to get the pupils involved too with the donating.

The aim of this group of volunteers is to provide care and necessities to the local service personnel, as well as upholding a continuous display of recognition for everything the service men and women in the area have done and continue to do. Mr Mills explained: “We are in the process of becoming a registered charity.”

The construction of the Heywood Memorial Wall is thanks to Harry Mills. He said: “I mentioned that we should have something like that about 10 years ago. It’s a place for families to go and see the names of the people they were related to and discover where they fought.”

The LVA have already added 12 names to the Cenotaph so far this year and have sent thousands of food parcels over the years. They also travel round on Christmas day offering food, gifts and company to people who are at home with no family.