On Saturday morning Pendle MP, Andrew Stephenson, attended the Colne Armed Forces & Veterans Breakfast Club at The Crown Hotel on Albert Road in Colne. The group meet the first Saturday of the month at the Crown, but also arrange other charitable and social events.
The club was launched three years ago by Tony Davies and Glen Colhoun and the aim of it is to be a point of contact and support for local veterans.
It is a national organisation that started by chance a decade ago in Hull by former Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers Derek Hardman and Peter Barker who regularly got together for Saturday morning breakfast and a bit of chat and banter while working on doing up an old military vehicle. They were joined by another ex serviceman who went along and invited another one and then as news spread the club started to grow and more and more clubs sprang up.
Today there are over 300 in existence all over the UK and one in Crete and also Germany.
Veterans and serving personnel can get together and exchange stories, memories and banter in a friendly, supportive atmosphere and many have described the breakfast club as like coming home. Representatives of all the armed forces are welcome to the breakfast club.
Andrew Stephenson MP said; “I was delighted to learn more about the breakfast club, alongside 30 local veterans young and old. Veterans should never feel excluded or alone and this group provides an excellent get together once a month, with a warm welcome and some banter as well.”