Pete

When a family tragedy struck a decade ago, SSAFA stepped in to help Army veteran Pete Forbes and his daughter. In 2023, it was his turn to help, as he ran the 13 Bridges Challenge in London. This year, he’ll be back at it, fundraising for SSAFA and dressed head-to-toe in his signature purple.

SSAFA’s 13 Bridges Challenge 2023 was the first for Army veteran ‘Purple’ Pete Forbes from Leeds, but it won’t be the last.

“I signed up for it in 2022, but I couldn't get the time off to actually go down to London to participate,” said Pete. “It’s difficult to get a long weekend off.

“I've done a few 10Ks in London and ran across Westminster Bridge. In all the years I've been going to visit London, I don't think I've been across many bridges. I’m really looking forward to it!

“Over the last couple of years, I've been running dressed up from head to toe in purple. Purple trainers, socks, leggings, and purple running top. I've now got the nickname Purple Pete! I even wear a purple tutu and wig!

“I started running in 2010. I was a smoker, and I was really unfit, and I thought, 'I need to do something.' Since then, I've done 10ks, half marathons, marathons. Over the years I’ve lost track of how many events I’ve run. It must be well into the 50s now.

“My very first one, when I was living down in Winchester, was on the Isle of Wight. Since moving up to Leeds, I've done the York Marathon three times, the Milton Keynes Marathon. Brighton, Blackpool. I did my hometown Southampton Marathon three years ago. Last year I went up to Scotland, for the Loch Ness Marathon.

I run, walk, jog...crawl!

“I say running but it’s jogging, partly walking! I'm not competitive. Some guys, the mega powerful, super-fit ones can do marathons in a couple of hours. I run, walk, jog...crawl! It can take up to six or seven hours, but once I cross the start line, I don't give up until I get to the finish!

“I think it's mind over matter. Even if your legs and feet want to give up, your head's saying, 'No, keep going. Keep going. It's only another mile, another mile.'

“I’m not fit. I’ve got a fat belly and I really need to lose a bit of the podge! But I do like my food, and I do like my beers!

“I go out just to have fun, not really to try and win anything. I've given up even trying to get a personal best!

“I've done the Great North Run three or four times in my purple attire! The spectators and fellow runners are absolutely awesome. They recognise me. When I went up to Scotland, some guy comes up to me and says, 'Ah, Purple Pete. I saw you in Bradford!'"

It just brings a smile to the face.

"When you're flagging near the end of a run, they'll be calling out your name. 'Oh, go on, Purple Pete,' and it just brings a smile to the face. It really is brilliant!

“I’ve been out of the Army over 30 years. But I did once have the need to ask for assistance from SSAFA, when my first wife passed away. They were absolutely brilliant, helping me financially to bring my wife's ashes over from Germany over to the UK, so that she could be laid to rest in Winchester.

“I joined the Army in 1975. I signed up for the Catering Corps because I thought everywhere in the world there’s an Army base, they’ll need chefs, which means the world is my oyster. But in my 14 years in the army, I had three postings in Germany, two in the UK, and six months in Northern Ireland, and that was it! I didn't get anywhere exotic. I was blessed in that I didn't get put in any danger, but it would have been nice to see a bit more of the world.

“After leaving catering college in Aldershot, my first post was with the 15th/19th King's Royal Hussars.

“The whole regiment got posted over to Paderborn, Germany. Germany was ace, I really loved it! I met my first wife there, Anna Maria.

“It was a nightclub disco in Sennelager. I met her on the 7th of January ‘79 at 7 o'clock when I walked into this nightclub, and we just clicked. It's hard to explain it. We just locked eyes and we both thought, 'Wow.' And that was it. It was that instantaneous.

I knew straight away this was the real thing.

“I met her on the 7th and the 8th I was asking her to be my missus, so I knew straight away that this was the real thing. A lot of people back then said, 'It's too soon. You've only just met her.' But I knew it was love at first sight. Amazingly, 11 months later we got married in Paderborn town hall. I had just turned 21. She was 22,” says Pete. “We were married for 35 years, so something must have been right!

“I got transferred to Celle in Germany, then I was sent to Northern Ireland in the last six months of my wife being pregnant. I became a dad while I was in Northern Ireland.” 

“My daughter Marcia was born in the British Military Hospital in Hanover, Germany. Next year will be her 40th which is hard to believe, when I think back to her being born while I was in Northern Ireland, and 39 years later she's a wife and a mum, living in Germany with two kids of her own.

“My last post was in Winchester with the Royal Green Jackets, and it was there I decided that Army catering was not my thing anymore. I just totally lost interest in it, so I gave my 12 months' notice.

“Anna Maria passed away suddenly in 2013. The marriage had failed after 35 years, and it was just a truly sad ending. We were separated but still married and my wife and daughter were living in the family house in Germany.

“I got a phone call from my daughter in hysterics saying her mum had passed away. I immediately got hold of work and said, 'I need to go over there to just be with my daughter, try and help sort things out.'"

It was an emotional time.

“It was an emotional time. While I was over there it was decided that it was best to have her ashes brought back over to the UK and laid to rest in Winchester which is where my daughter Marcia spent all her school years and made a lot of friends there. So, when Marcia comes over to the UK, she can pay her respects at the same time as seeing old friends and family.

“SSAFA helped me immensely, especially financially. I don’t think I would have been able to get my daughter flown over from Germany for the laying to rest of the ashes if it hadn't been for the help from SSAFA. One of the volunteers came round to pay a personal visit. They were absolutely amazing, so, so helpful, so supportive, so kind and generous. They just couldn't do enough.

“In my resettlement from the Army I took my lorry licence and bus licence. I’d been lorry driving for a couple of months, but it wasn't paying that well, so I went to Winchester bus station and asked if they had any jobs. They just snapped my hand off!” Pete recalls. “They gave me a job the following Monday, that was June '89.”  Pete continued as a bus driver through 2023, first in Winchester and then in Leeds. Having stopped driving buses due to his eyesight, Pete will retire in September 2024.

After meeting his second wife Angie, Pete moved to Leeds to be with her, and they were married in 2014.

Angie’s mum had been diagnosed with cancer.

“We're approaching nine years married now,” says Pete. “We were going to get married in Jamaica but then we heard the news that Angie’s mum had been diagnosed with cancer.

“She spent her last few months St Gemma's Hospice up here in Leeds. When she passed away, I decided to start raising some money for them. Their running top was, and still is, is purple. So, naturally, I started wearing purple.

“One year I was doing the Great North Run and, coming down the last mile, I was hearing people shouting out, 'Go on, Pete.' And I'm thinking, 'Are they shouting out to me, or another Pete?' And I thought I need a name tag. I'm wearing purple, my name's Pete, Purple Pete just rolls off the tongue, and it just came from there!

“SSAFA’s 13 Bridges Challenge is going to be brilliant!” he says. “And it’s a little bit of a payback for the help my family received and helping others who are in a more dire need than I am.”