I arrived early, as always, on Sunday 16th May at Vauxhall Station to limber up for the 10 Bridges Walk. Just to be sure of the correct location when leaving the Victoria Underground Station, I asked a motorcycle-mounted London Bobby whereabouts the south side of the bridge was and eagerly awaited more members to arrive for the start. This was the first event of it’s kind for Headway, a sponsored walk spanning 10 London bridges, all in aid of Headway groups, branches and centres in the London region. Some members were walking to raise hundreds of much-needed funds and others were offering their time to guide people along the way and raise awareness of acquired brain injury. Much gratitude goes to Sandra Ma, Headway East London’s Community Fundraiser, who’s superb organisational skills made the event run smoothly without any hiccups.

After using the continental-style, open-air urinals on the station esplanade (with no available loo paper), more and more participants arrived from every Headway group in London. We excitedly posed for publicity photos, registration and distribution of different sized T-shirts. We were able to view the actual pannier-loaded mountain bicycle that one of our members, Chris Hickman, would be using in a sponsored 2010 summer London-Paris cycle ride.

Following a rousing speech by actor Mr John Alderton, one of HEL’s patrons and star of ‘Upstairs-Downstairs’ and ‘Please Sir’, we all left in the north-bound direction of our first crossing point over the river with no volcanic-ash clouds, hung parliaments or North Sea Oil spills to ruin our day! Wearing an assortment of clothing ranging from cagoules, pac-a-macs and windcheater jackets we were expecting rain, but we were lucky in the fact that it never did.

After crossing the Vauxhall Bridge on the A202, our registration cards were duly signed by the many appointed marshals/stewards wearing bright yellow easy-to-spot waistcoats that we met along our way, and we all paced ourselves and walked responsibly, handing out Headway flyers to un-suspecting members of the public on the journey.

We continued our epic walk of discovery toward Lambeth Bridge, then Westminster Bridge, opposite the London Eye up some narrow steps toward Jubilee Bridge, then Waterloo Bridge, where some attendant tried to charge us 50p for “answering the call of nature”. We then reached Blackfriars Bridge, which apparently has a ghostly Masonic past, then carried on to the new, non-swinging Millennium Bridge! Onwrads to Southwark Bridge, where some walkers had formed into smaller groups of 3 or 4, then on to the new London Bridge, and finally Tower Bridge.

10.2km on and 2 hours and 15 minutes after the start, a few thirsty stragglers were able to just crawl to the finish line on their hands and knees for some much-needed medical treatment in the form of teas and coffees! We all congratulated each other, bid our farewells and went home tired, yet pleased in the knowledge that our beloved Headway charity would benefit from our exhaustion!