Meet Hartlepool’s new Armed Forces Champion and Veterans’ Champion 

Together they will work to help achieve the objectives of the Council’s Armed Forces Community Covenant.

This includes supporting and helping current servicemen and women and veterans, raising awareness and understanding of the issues affecting the Armed Forces community and encouraging residents, businesses and organisations to actively and visibly show their support for our servicemen and women, past and present.

Armed Forces Champion Councillor Chris Wallace (left) and Veterans’ Champion Terry Phillips

Councillor Wallace, who was born in and lives in Hartlepool, left the Army in January this year after ten years’ service, including a number of overseas tours.

He said: “I am very honoured and privileged to be the new Armed Forces Champion.

“I will be building on the excellent work done by my predecessor Brian Cowie and will continue to strengthen the links with the town’s three Army Reserve units.

“Together with Terry, I will be doing all I can to help our servicemen, women and veterans and encouraging everyone to take a pride in our town’s military history and to support our Armed Forces community.”

Terry Phillips, the new Veterans’ Champion, is also Hartlepool born-and-bred. He joined the 1st Battalion, The Light Infantry, at 16, serving with them for 11 years and ending his service in Berlin at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall after a career which took him around the world.

Terry is a member of numerous ex-service associations in Hartlepool and for over 20 years he has been Secretary of the Durham Light Infantry Association and Standard Bearer of the DLI, Light Infantry and Rifles associations.

He said: “It’s a privilege to be the new Veterans’ Champion. With being in numerous veterans’ groups in Hartlepool, I know that there are a lot of veterans in the town who don’t know what help and support is out there for them.

“A lot of people associate veterans with the 70 and 80-year-olds you see with a chestful of medals, but they don’t realise that the average age of a veteran is 23-24.

“For a town of its size, Hartlepool has a lot of support set up to help ex-servicemen and women and together with Chris I’ll be working to raise awareness of this.”

• Councillor Chris Wallace can be contacted on email christopher.wallace@hartlepool.gov.uk.

• Terry Phillips can be contacted on 01429 281532 or email t.phillips937@gmail.com.