Ex-Para is guest of honor at the hospital’s Armed Forces Day event

Patients who are military veterans or still serving have been invited to a celebration at a Bradford hospital ahead of Armed Forces Day on June 29.

Friday’s event at Bradford Royal Infirmary is part of the run-up to the day which falls on the last Saturday in June each year.

Armed Forces Day, originally known as Veterans Day, was first held on Saturday, June 27, 2006, and recognizes the contribution of the country’s armed forces.

Fundraiser and former paratrooper Jeffrey Long MBE, 92, from Bingley, will be the hospital’s guest of honour.

Fiona Mattison is Bradford Teaching Hospitals Armed Forces Champion.

She served as a senior airman in the Royal Air Force from 1986 to 2000 and did tours of duty in Cyprus and Germany.

“The event is an opportunity to show support and celebrate the men and women who make up the Armed Forces community, from serving personnel to service families, veterans and cadets,” she said.

“We know that in our family of hospitals we have a number of veteran patients and serving members of the Armed Forces, and we would love for them and their families to join the hospital staff at this meeting.

“Showing support for the armed forces provides a much-appreciated morale boost for service personnel, veterans and their families.”

Mr Long, who served with the 12th (Yorkshire) Parachute Battalion, has been fundraising since 2007, completing dozens of charity walks and raising more than £300,000.

Last year he walked 101 laps of Bradford’s Centenary Square, the equivalent of 25 miles, in aid of Bradford Hospitals Charity, raising more than £1,300.

In early 2006, then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announced plans for the first Veterans Day, which was renamed Armed Forces Day in 2009.

The date was chosen as it came the day after the anniversary of the first investiture of the Victoria Cross in Hyde Park, London in 1857.