Newsroom
NUJ President on a roll
NUJ President, Pete Murray returns to work this week after a three-day, 200 mile fundraising cycle ride through northern France and Belgium.
Pete, who completed the entire 320km trip on a home-built fixed gear bike, was one of more than forty riders taking part in the event, which raised more than £60,000 for the Manchester-based landmine clearance NGO, the Mines Advisory Group, and involved cycling through some of the historical and evocative battlefields of the Somme and Flanders.
"I'd first heard about MAG during the early days of the Iraq war, but this cycle ride was a real opportunity to do some serious fundraising for an important cause – clearing landmines and decommissioning weapons from conflicts as far apart as Angola and Laos," he says.
"It also became something of a personal odyssey, because shortly after I signed up for the trip, I discovered that one of my great-uncles had been killed in the last month of the First World War and was buried in a cemetery close to the route."
The team, which included MAG Chief Executive, Lou McGrath, visited a number of war cemeteries and memorials along the route, from Le Touquet in northwest France, to Ypres in Belgium. The group arrived at Ypres in time to watch the Last Post ceremony at the Menin Gate last Saturday, which included families of some of the Australian soldiers killed in the Battle of Fromelles, who had come to take part in Monday's re-burial services.
Says the NUJ President:
"The whole trip was a powerful and moving experience, as well as a pleasure – with the chance to ride with a supportive and committed group of people from all sorts of backgrounds, and to get a stab at Tour De France-style peloton riding – minus the headbutting and sprint finishing, of course! However, throughout the whole trip I could not forget a message posted to me by one of the dozens of friends, workmates and NUJ colleagues who donated money to MAG for me - a massive thanks to every one of them. He said: 'If this really was the War to End All Wars, what is it about "never again" that they don't get'?
