Junior Trophies

Conrad Lewis Memorial Trophy (Colchester)

The Conrad Lewis Trophy will be awarded to the fastest U19 participant completing the PARAS’10 TAB at Colchester. This is in tribute to Conrad and all other soldiers who have died whilst serving their country.

Paratrooper Conrad Lewis was posthumously recognised for his gallantry and “unique bravery” while serving in Afghanistan. The 22-year-old, of 4th Battalion The Parachute Regiment, received a mention in dispatches for his actions as a lead scout while on patrols operating from the isolated and hazardous Check Point Quadrat in the Nad-e Ali District of Helmand Province.

Attached to A Company, 3rd Battalion, Pte Lewis operated in the position of greatest danger as he and his fellow soldiers faced heavy, accurate and often repeated attacks. His citation states: “Amongst his peers he was recognised as a uniquely brave individual. Private Lewis’ mates were always his first concern, and he accepted huge personal risk to protect his colleagues on his first operational tour.”

On 9 February 2011, Private Lewis’s patrol came under fire and, during the ensuing firefight, he received serious gunshot wounds. Despite receiving immediate medical attention at the scene, and extraction by helicopter, Private Lewis sadly died of his wounds.

Alex Fairey Memorial Trophy (Catterick)

Captain Alexander Stuart Fairey was born on 8 May 1971 in Houghton, in the Test Valley, Hampshire, where he spent his childhood. Graduating from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1991, he was first commissioned into the Gordon Highlanders (now The Highlanders, 4 SCOTS) before transferring to The Parachute Regiment, where he remained until his death in a motorcycle accident on 5th November 1997. During his time with the Parachute Regiment, Alex served in both 2 PARA and 3 PARA, conducting operations in Northern Ireland and training for arctic warfare in Northern Norway.

Throughout his life, Alex pursued many Adventure Training activities with great enthusiasm, working as an Instructor at a centre in New Zealand, with John Ridgway at Ardmore in Scotland, and helping to run the Army’s Adventure Training Centre in Bavaria, Germany. Therefore the aim of The Alexander Fairey Memorial Fund (AFMF), set up in his memory, is to assist young soldiers and officers from both his former Regiments or young people from Hampshire and the Test Valley in particular to pursue and benefit from the same challenging and character-building activities that he enjoyed so much.

The PARAS’10 race embodies this adventurous, airborne spirit which the AFMF seeks to promote in young people and the Alexander Fairey Memorial Trophy will be awarded to the fastest U19 participant completing the PARAS’10 TAB at Catterick.