Devastated by the death of their son in Afghanistan, Jem and Bob Wright started a project to help service personnel adapt to life after conflict

Published on Sunday 7 February 2010 20:57

DEVASTATED by the death of their son in Afghanistan, Jem and Bob Wright threw their energy into a unique project to help service personnel adapt to life after conflict. By Emma Cowing

RED poppies blaze on the far wall of the Mark Wright Project Centre's lounge, tucked away in a quiet corner of the Midlothian town of Dalkeith.

Chosen by Jem Wright one day during a shopping trip to Ikea, the poppies add a bright, cosy feel to a room that is stuffed with sofas and bulging bookshelves.

Indeed, if it weren't for the framed document on the facing wall, you might mistake this for someone's living room. But the document is not a picture – it is a citation, describing the actions that

Corporal Mark Wright was killed in Afghanistan on 6 September, 2006, aged 27. A Paratrooper from just outside Edinburgh, he had entered a minefield in the Kajaki region of Helmand Province in an attempt to save several wounded colleagues, and was injured himself by a mine.

Despite his injuries he administered first aid to his comrades while waiting for a properly equipped helicopter to successfully evacuate them. He died on the way to the field hospital.

His death raised serious questions about the lack of helicopters operating in Afghanistan, and changed forever the lives of his parents, Jem and Bob.

"Mark's heart was in the army and he knew the dangers," says Jem, settling down in a comfy chair with a cup of tea. "But you never think it's going to happen to you."

We are sitting in the newly opened Mark Wright Project Centre, a unique facility that serves as a fitting testament to Mark's bravery, and aims to provide a wide range of support and advice to Scotland's forces veterans.

"Even as a wee boy Mark was kind and caring," says Jem. "And what happened at the end proved he was kind and caring. What we hope is that the centre will keep Mark's memory alive as a place where people can come and get help."

As she talks the doors swing open and shut, and the centre hums with chatter and laughter. A TV buzzes in the background while someone else surfs the internet.

There is a fully equipped gym, two private treatment rooms, a dining room and a kitchen, where Mark's father Bob keeps the teas and coffees flowing.

"What we're trying to do is create a family type of environment," says Nancy Campbell, the project's cheery director.

"All we're doing is facilitating – putting veterans in touch with the right people, but in an environment that they feel safe and secure in."

The word "veteran" is one that is often, even today, associated with elderly gentlemen with highly polished medals paying their respects at war memorials.

But the recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have left Britain with a new generation of veterans – some barely out of their teens, many of them under 40 – for whom adjusting to life as a civilian while coping with physical or psychological injuries sustained while fighting abroad presents a wide range of sensitive problems.

Organisations such as Veterans First Point, set up in Edinburgh and run by NHS Lothian, have attempted to stem the tide, but the feeling within the veterans community is that more can still be done.

One of the centre's biggest supporters is Colonel Stuart Tootal, Mark's commanding officer in 3 Para, who resigned from the army in 2007 over lack of equipment, and who describes the project as "both exciting and worthy". He has maintained close links with the Wright family, and stays with Jem and Bob whenever he visits Scotland.

The doors of the centre are open to veterans from anywhere in Scotland. They are also open to their families, who may be looking for advice on how to support a relative, or are even in search of a little respite themselves.

Staff can advise veterans on organisations that may be able to help them with a range of issues, whether it be going back to work, or counselling for emotional issues. They will also listen to problems, and pick up the phone for them. Reiki, massage and homeopathy treatments are also available, and – perhaps just as valuable – a simple cup of tea and a chat.

"There are no two ex-servicemen the same," says Campbell. "Some guys will come in and have a wee chat, a cup of coffee, surf the net, read a book or watch the TV, or you might have a guy who's been coming in for two or three weeks building up the trust and the confidence to ask about something.

It could be problems with benefits, or it could be that they need help with education or training."

Guys, in fact, like Chris Savage, 39, a veteran of the Royal Logistics Corps who served in every major conflict of the 1990s, including the first Gulf War, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.

When he left the army in December 2001 he was initially happy to return to civilian life, building up his own landscaping business in his native Nottingham and settling down with his wife and child.

Then one day during the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2005 everything changed.

"I was driving along near to where they had been burning cattle and it brought back these flashbacks," he says candidly. "I lost one of my close friends who burnt to death in the Gulf in 1991, and the smell provoked all these memories and I just couldn't get them out of my head. They just wouldn't leave me."

Savage was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a crippling mental illness that can afflict anyone who has experienced trauma.

It is particularly common among military veterans and causes violent outbursts, emotional shutdowns and social dysfunction, affecting not only those afflicted but those around them as well.

"It affected me so dramatically that I lost a successful landscaping business, my wife and child, and 14 months ago I was on the streets of London, eating out of a dustbin at the back of Sainsbury's," says Savage.

"I lost everything." Savage was eventually given a helping hand by Veterans Aid, who sent him to a veterans' residential centre in Edinburgh. He has since moved to Bonnyrigg, and has been coming to the Mark Wright Project Centre since it opened.

With their help he has started a bicycle repair firm, with plans to re-start his landscaping business. He even remarried last year.

"I started spending more time here and I've never looked back," he says. "I volunteer down here or go to the gym or make a cup of tea. I don't do sympathy, I do empathy. That's what veterans need."

Andy Lorimer, who served in the Royal Air Force for 18 years and flew helicopters for special forces, agrees. He was discharged from the military having been diagnosed with PTSD, and found it incredibly difficult to get help.

At one point he was referred to a psychologist who had never heard of the illness. He has since recovered and retrained as a counsellor in neuro-linguistic programming, treating PTSD sufferers such as himself. He spends one day a week treating veterans at the centre.

"They're completely open-minded here," he says. "They care. It offers so much to people and there are so many guys out there in need of something like this."

Another area of support that the project hopes to develop is bereavement counselling for families who have lost someone on active service, and Jem says that she and Bob are also always available if anyone wants to talk to them about how they're feeling.

"We've been in that position," she says. "We lost a son. So we understand what people are going through."

With horrific clarity, Jem can still recall the moment when she heard that her son had been killed. "I was working, and I got home about 5:30pm and Bobby was going out. As he left he said someone had been killed in Helmand and my gut feeling was that it was Mark. At 6 o'clock the door went and it was two soldiers.

"They asked if they could come in and I said, 'If you're telling me Mark's been hurt you can come in. If you're telling me Mark's been killed you can't.' And that's when they said he'd been killed. I remember sitting on the stairs in the hall and saying, 'You can't come in, you can't come in.' But in the end, they did."

For Bob and Jem, the grieving process will never end. "Sometimes, even now, I still think he's going to come home," she says. "I think it's because he was away. You just think he's still going to walk through the door."

In the meantime, the couple have their hands full with the centre, and are looking ahead to a fundraising concert which will take place on Valentine's Day, to be introduced by Sally McNair and featuring singers Fiona MacDonald, Judith Howarth and Christina Dunwoodie, as well as the Clydesdale Male Voice Choir and the RSAMD Brass Group.

Ultimately, Jem says, she'd like to see a Mark Wright Project in every city in the country.

"We've tried to make something positive come out of something terrible. If this hadn't happened to Mark, we would never have thought of opening a place like this or trying to help. I think Mark would be proud of us."

&#149 Greater Love, a concert in aid of the Mark Wright Project, will take place at Glasgow City Halls on Sunday 14 February at 3pm. Tickets are available from 0141-353 8000