Help for Heroes’ Recovery Centre and Hero Garden, Plymouth

The Help for Heroes’ Recovery Centre, within Devonport Naval Base is a purpose built £23million facility providing state-of-the-art rehabilitation equipment as well as specially adapted accommodation for both veterans and service personnel coping with life-changing injuries and mental health issues.

The £23 million complex, opened in 2014, was funded by Help for Heroes (H4H) and is now run as a shared facility by H4H and the MOD to benefit both veterans and service personnel coping with life-changing injuries and mental health issues. The Endeavour Centre in the complex, houses a 25-metre swimming pool with a floor that can be raised for ease of entry into the water, a hydrotherapy pool heated to 40 degrees, a physiotherapy suite with individual treatment rooms and a sizable gymnasium. It is one of four recovery centres in the UK, alongside Tidworth, Colchester and Catterick.

On the day we visited the centre, it was a hive of activity as Fridays are particularly busy with a range of activities taking place, including a number of opportunities for families to join in. The Hero Café was packed with people and Josie Scobling, H4H Comms & Marketing Officer, explained that the café provides a safe haven for beneficiaries to drop into and meet friends or share some family time. The nearby support hub is also a hugely valuable resource staffed by H4H, providing advice as well as access to ongoing support from other agencies. As Josie takes us for a quick tour of the building, despite the number of users, there is an understated sense of calm everywhere inspired by the spacious modern interior with its stylish design. The pool is organised very much on the lines of a public swimming pool with timetabled slots for different sessions and users, but modifications everywhere from the changing rooms to the adjustable floor in the pool mean that the facilities are accessible for everyone. The gymnasium incorporates a fixed-line sitting volleyball court and a climbing wall donated by Tough Mudder, which organises challenge events designed by British Special Forces and has selected H4H as its official charity partner. Everyone is assigned a personal trainer before using the gym to assess their needs and devise a recovery schedule around their particular requirements. There are also a number of classes such as dance aerobics, tai chi and yoga throughout the week, as well as residential sports recovery programmes both at Devonport and in other locations around the south west, which are a very useful aid in treating physical and mental health issues. Outreach programmes at other locations in Wales and the south west are also being established for people who find it difficult to commute to Plymouth regularly. Plymouth University has also launched a reciprocal collaboration with Help for Heroes’ Plymouth Recovery Centre so that students can benefit from work placements at the centre and wounded serving and veteran forces personnel can take advantage of learning opportunities.

Rehabilitation programmes are not simply restricted to sports activities within the Recovery Centre though, as it is increasingly being recognised that horticultural activities have a marked therapeutic benefit. Simply being surrounded by trees, flowers and nature can help people to relax, reducing stress and consequently help to reduce anxiety and pain. In 2007 researchers from Bristol University and University College London also discovered that a bacteria commonly found in soil, activated the production of the brain chemical serotonin in a similar way to antidepressants. So basically, gardening, or just being in a garden, is good for you and can aid recovery in areas of both physical and mental health. With this in mind the Hero Garden was created when the vegetable garden belonging to the naval base commodore’s house was passed over to Help for Heroes’. The site had become very overgrown and veterans and servicemen combined to begin clearing the area in December 2014. The design of the garden was the work of veteran Royal Marine Commando Martin Payne, who started a garden design business after being medically discharged as a Colour Sergeant in 2011. With the aid of naval contractors to level the ground, lay turf and create paths and beds, the garden opened in September 2015. Since then, Help for Heroes garden supervisor Jane Honey, has worked tirelessly to turn what was essentially an unused plot of land into a very organised and fertile garden, producing 47 varieties of fruit, vegetables and herbs, including more than 50kgs of potatoes in the first year. Fruit from three established apple trees in the garden, combined with donated apples was pressed and bottled at Greenbank Farm and is now available under the Help for Heroes label. Four beehives have also kept the bee team extremely busy looking after the 480,000 bees which produced 80lbs of honey last year. All the produce is harvested to provide an income for H4H through donations, and anything left over is distributed to local charities such as the Salvation Army and Shekinah Mission.

A well-equipped potting shed has benches at three different heights enabling gardeners to find a comfortable working height, while the raised beds, ground level allotments, polytunnel and borders provide ample opportunity for beneficiaries to drop in whenever they want and lend a hand. The garden and the summerhouse also offer the perfect venue for weekly craft sessions with the possibility of basic gardening courses being offered in the future. The project has been very fortunate to benefit from an £18,000 donation from former Tavistock Royal British Legion Social Club, tools refurbished by prisoners at HMP Dartmoor under The Conservation Foundation and a large number of seed donations. The garden is a wonderful resource and as part of the focus on mental health issues, H4H is keen for ex-service personnel and family members to get in touch and find out more about how H4H can help.

The Plymouth Recovery Centre supports wounded, injured and sick veteran and serving personnel, and their families. For more information on how to get support please contact Plymouth.supporthub@helpforheroes.org.uk. The H4H team, headed up by Jock Easton, head of recovery at the Plymouth base, works very closely with both Hasler NSRU, which looks after the rehabilitation of seriously injured serving personnel, as well as all other major organisations who work to support members of the armed forces.

The work that Help for Heroes does is only made possible through donations and fundraising. To find out how you can help visit