The Armed Forces Region of HCPT - The Pilgrimage Trust specialises in taking disabled children of servicemen or those associated with the services and disabled ex-servicemen or relatives and dependents that have grown out of the Easter Pilgrimage to Lourdes.

The children travel in family groups – of about 20-30 - based on the different services (the Army and Royal Air Force have one family group each while the Royal Navy normally travels with 3 groups) while the ex-servicemen and older dependents travel in the “Joint Services Hosanna House Group”. These groups normally include a number of very experienced service nurses and often include a doctor; the pilgrimages see them putting their skills into action rather differently to the way they are applied at sea or in Afghanistan!

Each group acts autonomously within the structure of the holiday/pilgrimage joining in a full range of activities which range from those which are associated with the spiritual element of Lourdes to those which are purely for fun and amusement. As you can imagine for disabled children the latter tend to dominate whilst for the elder people a more reflective period of respite is often appropriate.

The Groups are identified as follows:

Royal Navy:

Group 150 - predominantly from the Plymouth / West Country area

Group 186 - predominantly from the Portsmouth area

Group 200 - predominantly from the West of Scotland

Army:

Group 182 - covering all UK

RAF:

Group 187 - covering all UK

Joint Services:

Group 507 - based in the West Country but covering all UK

Further details and contacts may be found on individual web pages.

Until such detail is fully uploaded the initial point of contact for enquiries from those who would like to join the pilgrimage or those who believe they know someone who would benefit from joining (be this a child or adult) is: anthony.mcewen@btinternet.com