Tim Saunders MBE MA
Tim Saunders had a thirty year career as an infantry officer before leaving the army to become a full time military historian. He works in a variety of related areas including museums, documentary production, writing and of course battlefield guiding. He was a founder member of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and its first Fellow.
Tim was a member of the Guild’s Council for eight years and Director of Validation between 2015 and 2017. He is a very active within the Guild and is currently the Fellowship Secretary.
As a director of Battlefield History TV, Tim wrote, presented and directed fifty full length military history documentaries covering periods from the Dark Ages, through the English Civil War and the Napoleonic Wars, to the Second World War.
As an author Tim has written over twenty books on subjects as diverse as the Peninsular War (Sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo (2018), The Light Division (2020)), the First World War (Westcountry Regiments on the Somme (2004)) and the Second World War (Battleground – Hells Highway, Nijmegen and The Island (2002-2006)) and Operation Totalize (2019) and Arras 1940 (2018).
Anthony Coutts-Britton BA (Hons)
Tony Coutts-Britton is a graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He also graduated Summa cum Lauda in History and Politics from the University of Maryland. He served as an Infantry Officer and Staff Officer before leaving the army as a Lieutenant Colonel to become an International Civil Servant working for NATO in Belgium. He retired in 2004 and became a full-time history lecturer and battlefield guide. He joined the Guild in its first year and gained Badge No 20 in November 2005. He was elected as the third Fellow of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides in 2014.
Tony was a Council member for several years and is a Past Chairman of the Guild. During his Chairmanship, he instituted the Guild Awards and oversaw the beginnings of the transition of the Guild into a limited company status. After stepping down as Chairman, Tony continued as a member of the Validation Team and regularly acts as a validator; a role he much enjoys.
As a history lecturer, much of his time is taken up with speaking engagements on cruise ships. In this role he has travelled widely to all the continents. Having delivered lectures on board about the History of Conflict relevant to the itinerary, he accompanies shore excursions to the battlefields where he is able to engage his guiding skills in delivering “smell the cordite” tours in the best tradition of the Guild. He believes himself to be fortunate to do this, often in far away locations such as the Far East, where tales of Maori Wars, battles in Indochina, Hong Kong and Korea can be recounted. As he often will say, “it is no different to delivering the tales in the February gloom of the Ypres Salient, the core skills are required and the tale must grip the tour group”.
Christopher Finn MPhil
Christopher Finn served in the RAF for 33 years as a navigator, primarily on the Buccaneer, and was a weapons and tactics specialist. A graduate of the Joint Services’ Defence College, in 2000 he gained an MPhil in International Relations from Cambridge University. His last 5 years in the RAF were spent at Shrivenham, firstly on the Directing Staff of the Advanced Command and Staff Course and then, on promotion to Group Captain, as the RAF’s Director of Defence Studies. In this role he lectured extensively on air power to UK and international audiences, published articles on air power and ran the RAF’s staff ride programme.
On leaving the RAF in 2005 he spent ten years as a Senior Lecturer in Air Power Studies with Kings College London, later Portsmouth University, based at the RAF College Cranwell.
Chris’ primary expertise is in the influence of air power on the battlefield and areas such as joint fires, logistics, command and control, intelligence, campaign planning, leadership at all levels and the political aspects of warfare. However, he has also covered maritime battles (Malta & NEPTUNE) and land battles (Monte Cassino & Berlin).
Chris lectures on Aviation and Military History to a wide range of audiences including, recently, an on-line lecture on the role of the Royal Artillery in the Imjin River Battle of the Korean War. He is currently writing a chapter on Bomber Command tactics for a book on the Combined Bomber Offensive to be published in 2021.
He is a Fellow of both the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Higher Education Academy, and works as a volunteer Guide at the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight.
A member of the Guild since 2008 Chris gained his Badge in 2009, becoming a validator the following year. He has organised a number of Guild Events, the last being a Guild Recce to Berlin in 2019. He became the Chief Validator in 2015 and the Director of Validation (now Accreditation Director) in 2017. He was elected the fourth Fellow of the Guild at the 2020 Annual Conference.