THEY have sailed the seven seas aboard one of the Navys most fearsome destroyers to protect Britains interests abroad.
Now fresh from a tour of duty patrolling the Falkland Islands, the sailors of HMS Edinburgh have had their plans for a 460-mile charity walk scuppered – by fears about their safety on Scotlands roads.
An 18-strong team had planned to march from Portsmouth to Edinburgh to raise thousands of pounds to raise money for the Radio Lollipop volunteer team at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children.
But worries about a sailor being knocked down on one of the busy A-roads between the Capital and the Border have forced the crew to abandon their original plan.
Instead, a team from HMS Edinburgh will march the same distance around the streets of the Capital collecting money.
The ships supply officer Phil Waterhouse explained the problem with the march first arose when he contacted police forces along the route.
He said: “Many of the A-roads we wanted to use didnt have proper pavements or pathways running alongside. The last thing we wanted to see was a sailor being run over.”
The original plan was for three sailors from an 18-strong team to be on the road at any one time, marching from the ships home base in Portsmouth to the Capital.
But now a slimmed-down squad of five teams of two will pound the streets of Edinburgh instead.
Iain Wynn, the ships 30-year-old leading stores accountant, from Liberton, organised the march. He said: “The sailors are really up for this challenge and have been putting in lots of preparation, so there was no way we were going to back out.”
He explained the march will begin at 10am on Saturday, February 9, at the Sick Kids Hospital.
Teams will start from there with some going to Cramond, Granton and Portobello.
The march will climax at 2pm on Saturday, February 16, with the sailors marching up the Royal Mile accompanied by pipers and children from the Sick Kids Hospital.
At the Castle they will be met by an official reception party including Commander Guy Robinson, captain of HMS Edinburgh, Commodore Angus Sandford and representatives of the city council and Radio Lollipop.
Liz Neil, a spokeswoman for Radio Lollipop at Edinburgh Sick Kids, praised the fund-raising effort saying it was the biggest the station had seen in years.
She said: “Walking through Edinburgh has in fact worked out better for us because it will raise our profile in the city and also the profile of the ship.”
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