MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Veterans Yorkshire reunion will help raise funds for mass return to Falklands.

Several hundred members of the British Falklands War veterans association will be meeting this weekend in the north of England, for an informal gathering.

The most popular topic of conversation over beer and barbecue food in a quiet and beautiful corner of Yorkshire promises to be the veterans mass return to the Falklands next November, where they will mark the 20th anniversary of the war.

The two-day Yorkshire get-together, organized by the South Atlantic Medal Association 82 (SAMA) is being billed as a "fun" event, based around a country pub.

There will be live music and other entertainment, and the veterans are being encouraged to bring their families. It is intended that there should be many more smiles than tears, but on Saturday evening all memories will return to the Falklands when a Scottish piper will play a solemn lament for those who did not return from the South Atlantic.

The organisers say that money raised in the Yorkshire reunion will go towards the (pounds UK) 350,000 cost of the Falklands pilgrimage.

Speaking to the BBC World Service programme Calling the Falklands, SAMA's national secretary, Denzil Connick, an ex-Parachute Regiment soldier who lost a leg in combat on Mount Longdon, said that he sees next year's Falklands pilgrimage as "therapy" for veterans who are still carrying the mental scars of their experiences during 1982. "A lot of these people will be going back to the Falklands for the first time since 1982," he said. "A lot of them will be suffering from mild forms of post traumatic stress disorder with disturbed thoughts and some of them will be suffering from quite severe post traumatic stress disorder. The pilgrimage will make them much better for having had the opportunity to go back to the Islands, see them as they are now and come back with fresh memories, happy memories which will help them get on with the rest of their lives."

With membership growing at the pleasing rate of 20 to 30 a month, demand for places on the SAMA pilgrimage is expected to be high, but Mr Connick said that it had been necessary to limit the number of places available to 250. That is approximately the capacity of the British Airways aircraft which SAMA plans to charter for the journey, and is also a reasonable number to be accommodated among Falklands families in Stanley. Participating members will each be expected to cont