The families of 9 soldiers killed in Afghanistan are walking a mammoth 100 miles to raise money for the Royal Anglian Memorial Fund, which helps injured soldiers return back to duty. The walk has been dubbed “100 miles for 9 smiles”.

Christine, from Tydd Gote, Cambridge and mother of Darren who lost his life while on tour in Afghanistan, has organized the charity walk and hopes she can “do something useful and support his “Army Family” as I know he would want me to do this on his behalf.” Other family members of the fallen soldiers walking the distance include Helen Gray, mother of Chris, Jan Hawkins and Anne Williams. It began on Monday 7th July and is due to finish on Sunday 13th July.

The walk, from Brookwood in Surrey to Duxford in Cambridge, is due to raise £20,000 for the charity and offers some positivity to come out of the tragedy that still weighs heavily on both the families and the deceased soldier’s regiment. ITV Local report that the walk is also being attended by some of the soldiers who want to show their solidarity and honour their former comrades. The battalion who toured Afghanistan was made up of soldiers from Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex, and the tour has been claimed to be one of the toughest tours in the 43 year history of the regiment. The battalion was also awarded an unusually high number of medals – 78 in total, including 6 military crosses.

You can leave your support for the “100 miles for 9 smiles” charity walk in the comments section, or visit Christine’s sponsorship page where her target of £20,000 is steadily increasing.

I spent much of the weekend at Guilfest, hanging out backstage like with all the rest of the journos and hangers-on.

I really love this festival - just a week after Glastonbury, the events couldn’t be more different. For a start, Guilfest is held in a town centre park, and despite some heavy showers, the mud was almost non-existent.

As for the line-up, Guilfest trawls the back catalogues of rock history for headline acts, so we were treated to a wonderful set by Blondie (left) on Saturday night, followed by The Damned (above left) on Sunday afternoon.

Both bands sounded fantastic onstage, despite both suffering from the loss of some original members since their punk/NewWave heyday.

On the other hand, I felt very uncomfortable watching Woking’s own From The Jam perform on Sunday evening.

This band is basically The Jam - minus Paul Weller. They play some fantastic pop songs from the Jam archive with the assistance of two extra musicians, one of whom makes a fair stab at imitating the gruff Weller vocal on some of The Modfather’s greatest hits. So why was I so uncomfortable watching them?

Okay, they have to make a living, and while Paul Weller has creamed off most of the songwriting royalties from the Jam days, the Other Two have to keep gigging to make ends meet. But the sight of a soundalike belting out “When you’re young”, 30 years after I saw the actual Jam play this live and blow me away, gave me the creeps. Was this an updated Jam or a tribute band? I’m still not really sure.

I suppose the moral of the story is: if a band keeps the same singer, they can get away with other changes over the years. If the frontperson goes, then they’re in trouble…

Any comments on this?