FORMER soldier Richard Jenkins is St Julians born and bred. He talks to Martin Wade about climbing the Himalayas for charity and a dramatic rescue on the slopes of Everest.

I'm a Newport boy and live in St Julians, the place I went to school and, apart from my time in the army, the place I've always lived.

I joined the army straight after leaving school in 1987. I served in the Royal Artillery, 22 Air Defence Regiment. We were known as the Welsh Gunners and I served in Dortmund in Germany and worked on Rapier anti-aircraft missiles. I also served in Northern Ireland. I left the army in 1990 and came back to St Julians.

Soon after coming back to Newport I met my wife Nadine. We've been together 25 years now. We went to Mexico together for our anniversary. It was wonderful - the first time we'd been on holiday together without the kids. We've got three daughters; Sam, 28, Tamsin, 21 and Abbey 20. They all live no more than 100 yards away from us.

My eldest daughter Sam has Crohn's disease and this inspired me to take on a big challenge. In 2008 I joined a team to climb to an Everest base camp at 18,000 ft to raise money for a Crohn's disease charity called Action Medical Research.

It was an incredible experience, but very hard. There's 50% less oxygen at that altitude and because we went in February it was very cold, around -20C.

While we were walking back to our base camp at about 17,000ft a helicopter passed over us and minutes later we heard it crash into the mountain.

Myself and one of the guides, Dawa Gelgen Sherpa climbed for about 30 minutes to the crash site. There were three people there and they were completely disorientated and in total shock. One of them had cut his hand up really badly.

We led the two Nepalese army crew and their passenger, a doctor from America, down to safety at our base camp. If we hadn't have been there I don't know what they would have done, but the adrenaline was pumping and it was a really nice feeling to think we helped them be to be able to see their families again. Apparently high winds caused the helicopter to spin out of control before its rotors clipped the mountain and made it crash.

We were just in the right place at the right time. I'm glad we could help them, but without the help from Dawa Gelgen Sherpa, I wouldn't have been able to do anything.

I became friends with the doctor and stayed in touch. His name is Sam Bartholomew and he's a plastic surgeon from Oregon. I remember being relieved that nothing happened to his hands.

That expedition raised £5,000 for the Crohn's disease charity.

I went to Everest again in 2011 this time for another cause. Our Sherpa, Dawa Gelgen, told me about the charity he set up with other trekkers from the west called Classroom in the Clouds. It was set up to build schools for Nepalese children because 70% of them are illiterate and they're very poor.

I took 60kg of sports equipment with me to donate to the children, but had to share it out around our group to get it through the airport!

We raised around £6,000 including donations from by my company Eastman to enable them to build a classroom at a village called Solukhumbu for the Shree Majhgaun Lower secondary school.

It is such a humbling place to visit. The people, like the Sherpas are so strong and so kind and it was great to be able to help them.

The company I work for, Eastman, is based in Newport. They’re very generous and it’s a great place to work. I did various jobs after leaving the army but I've worked at the same place for the last 18 years. They were called Monsanto when I joined them and my dad worked there for 32 years so I followed him into it. They're one of those companies which really look after their workers. Every year they take employees and their families to the panto at the New Theatre in Cardiff. We have debentures at the Millennium Stadium and I've seen so many games there with the company, there are just too many to mention. It's unusual in this day and age - my friends are very jealous of me!

I've done other challenges for Classroom in the Clouds. With a group I walked 54 miles across the Brecon Beacons in 24 hours. It was incredibly hard, but so many people had donated money I couldn't back out! Unfortunately I injured my back doing it.

I've recently finished my latest charity project. The 22-push-up challenge was started to raise awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder. The 22 refers to the number of US servicemen and women who commit suicide every year due to PTSD.

I decided to do it because people kept challenging me to, but also because my nephew, Liam Tracey, served in Afghanistan and was diagnosed with PTSD while he was there. He still has dark issues and is receiving treatment, but he has a lovely family and is getting better. I served in Northern Ireland in the 80s and I was very lucky I didn’t come back with a stress disorder and I was able to carry on with my normal life.

The idea is you film yourself doing the push-ups, post it on Facebook and nominate someone else to do it and it grows from there.

Each day, I did the push-ups differently, some with my sister on my back for her birthday or my niece and I've done them wearing women's clothes. It's a little bit of fun and it’s about raising awareness. The video I did of me doing push-ups at the checkout of Tesco in Spytty went viral – it has had over 15,000 views. I was getting messages from across the world. Another video I did outside Newport's police station wearing a woman’s dress has got over 6,000 views.

As soon as my back is better I'm going to go back to the Himalayas. I'd love to go to 24,000 ft this time and I'd like to see the school we helped fund.

I always want to go the extra mile for good causes, it's just the way I am.