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Ewan’s particular interests are Leadership, the Realities of War and Close Combat, through the ages, but particularly the ‘horse and musket’ era. On tour, he believes in balancing depth of research with enjoyment.

He is a direct successor to Wellington’s McGrigor as Director General Army Medical Services. He set up and led the British Army’s Air Assault Medical Regiment and then commanded all of the Army’s Field Hospitals operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He was awarded an MBE for Squadron leadership in the First Gulf War and CBE for his direction of the Army Medical Services (AMS), at a time when the AMS achieved its highest battle casualty survival rate in history (halving the death rate).

A graduate of the Army Staff College and member of the Royal College of Defence Studies, his MA was on whether it is possible to create a strategy which endures. A Fellow of one of the Medical Royal Colleges, he is also an Apothecary and Freeman of the City of London.

Gregarious rather than combative by nature, he was surprised to be elected as President of the Combined Services Martial Arts Society by its members, and even more pleasantly surprised to win the first Worldwide Open tournament for renaissance sword & buckler at Hanover in 2010.

Graeme has been battlefield guiding since 1995. He operates ‘Cooper’s Waterloo Tours’, a family run Essex based business specialising in tailored tours to the Napoleonic Campaign battlefields of the Peninsular War and Waterloo. A Fellow of the International Napoleonic Society (FINS), Graeme qualified as a Waterloo Campaign Guide with Les Guides 1815 in 1998.

Graeme’s interest in the Napoleonic Campaigns was sparked during his time as a cadet at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst by his tutors, the late and renowned military historians and authors, Professor Richard Holmes and Dr David Chandler. His Great Great grandfather John Cooper fought at Waterloo in the 7th Hussars. In WW2 Graeme’s father Johnny Cooper was David Stirling’s navigator in ‘L’ Detachment SAS.

Graeme was the driving force behind the creation of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides in November 2002. Since his original idea, the Guild has grown to International status and has set the benchmark for many who have passed its quality validation programme. Graeme was the Guild Secretary until November 2009 when he became the first member to be elected to the Guild’s Roll of Honour for his services to the Guild and the craft. He is currently the Guild’s historian and organizes the Guild’s annual ‘Badged Guides Dinner’ and ‘Annual Guild Golf Championships’.

In May 2006 he established Corporate Battlefields Ltd, a leadership training company for corporate management and has since delivered to senior global management teams from eBay, Boeing UK, London Fire Brigade, Lilly, Brother UK, HSBC, Parliamentarians, the NATO Secretary General and others on the battlefields of Waterloo, Salamanca, Isandlwana, Normandy D-Day Beaches and Naseby.

Graeme is a recognised Great War and WW2 Guide, member of the Battlefields Trust and former Chairman of the British Army of the Rhine Branch of the Western Front Association. He and his wife live in Essex and have a son and daughter who both commissioned through Sandhurst. Graeme enjoys golf, photography, chess and telemark skiing.

Graeme’s testimonials declare his standards.

“Graeme Cooper is the master story-teller. You stand with him in a green field, but when he speaks you see a battlefield before you.” – Adam Holloway MP

John Cotterill is a self employed battlefield guide for military groups, veterans, civilian clubs, families, individuals and schools. He was a founder member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides in 2003, was badged in 2004 (Badge 10) and was a Guild validator for 15 years. John served as a regular officer in the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment and their successors the Mercian Regiment for 37 years. He saw active service in Ulster, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan and inactive service on four continents. He lives in Nottingham and is an active member of the Western Front Association, the Soldiers,Sailors and Airmans Families Association (SSAFA) and his Regimental Association. John’s particular speciality is writing and delivering problem solving exercises that allow participants to “re-fight” battles of the past. He has guided groups on battlefields from Tanzania to Tunisia and from Stalingrad to Singapore

I am a retired Army Quartermaster (Logistics) and have been guiding professionally since 2009.

My interest in battlefields began as a boy when I caused uproar in his father’s garden by digging trenches and having battles with model soldiers in my father’s flower/vegetable beds. I joined the Army, aged 15 as a Junior Leader in 1961. Since then, my Regular Army career has been with many different Regiments and Corps (Middlesex, Queens, Royal Army Medical Corps and the Intelligence Corps), spanned 47 years, with operational experience in Northern Ireland and The Former Republic of Yugoslavia. In June 2002 I was awarded an MBE for my service.

I have had an extensive career serving across the globe. my infantry experience, both tactical and administrative gives me a soldier’s eye for ground with its impact on various weapon systems and the logistic support needed to maintain armies in the field.

I have an interest in medieval battles such as the Battle of Lewes and Wolverhampton, as well as the English Civil War. I have researched and led a Tour of the Battle of Waterloo in the past and have added this to my list of tours. Another area I am researching is the various Battles of the Hundred Years War with France and anticipate being qualified to take Tours in these battles.

I am also well qualified to lead tours on many of the battlefields of both World Wars.

John has been interested in military history since childhood. He comes from an extended military family and his early hobbies – modelmaking, wargaming and re-enacting – all allowed him to pursue his interest.

His involvement in re-enacting has taken him to battlefields across the UK, western Europe and the USA, and he has spoken to audiences of varying types, numbering up to 10,000 in one instance, about all aspects of conflict.

After a full-time career in Royal Mail, John took early retirement in 2012. His role as a senior manager with commercial and financial responsibilities gave him a keen awareness of the importance of customer satisfaction and ideas of value for money, concepts that are a key part of his touring offerings.

He has a BA (with First-Class Honours) in War Studies, completed part-time at the University of Birmingham and then the University of Kent while he was working.

Battlefield tour guiding has long been an ambition and John joined the Guild in 2015. He undertook training on the theory and practise of all aspects of guiding – the tour management side as well as engaging audiences in historic locations. He is proud to be a member of the Guild and to have been awarded Badge Number 82 in June 2017. In progressing towards the Badge, John was delighted to receive the Guild’s David Chandler Award for work he did on sources relating to the engagements of Lexington and Concord at the start of the American War of Independence.

John is a freelance guide and a keen motorbike rider. He specialises in set and bespoke motorbike tours of First World War and Second World War sites, the former including Ypres and the Somme, the latter relating to the May 1940 campaign, Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. He is equally happy to guide those who prefer to travel on more than two wheels.

As well as the World Wars, John has a keen interest in eighteenth- and early nineteenth- century warfare, particularly during the Seven Years’ War, American War of Independence and Waterloo campaigns.

I began exploring battlefields, castles and other defensive sites as a teenager. These early interests became a lifelong passion in understanding the past through battles as turning points in history and led to membership of the Guild and gaining qualification as an accredited member.

A full career in policing has trained me in a detective’s way to look for corroboration of facts. There’s a saying ‘never let facts get in the way of a good story’, however I believe the truth holds a more revealing narrative than a mere story. Revisiting the accepted course of events is a rewarding way to explore scenes of battle, encouraging discussion about accepted facts.

Graduating from the School of Ancient History and Archaeology, Leicester University in 2012, I have a familiarity with modern archaeological techniques. This enables me to explain how advances in scientific analysis may significantly add insight for battlefield tourists. An example of this has been scrutinising the recent revelations of King Richard III’s battle wounds and reassessing the conduct of the battle of Bosworth through field walking and geophysical surveys.

I have visited and studied a wide range of historical sites across the Mediterranean and Europe from ancient to modern eras. Organising private tours to interesting locations overseas and in the U.K. has become a real pleasure, providing additional research and discrete visits according to client needs.

As a local historian, I am a member of a variety of community based groups with interest in maintaining a living heritage, such as the Rutland Historical Society. My archaeological skills are maintained through field-walking, surveys and excavations with community archaeological teams and Leicester University.

Personal historical interests extend from Roman occupation of Britain through Saxon and Viking settlement to the Norman Conquest. I have particular knowledge of the English Civil War and an understanding of the Wars of the Roses with fresh interpretation of the end of medieval age with the defeat of Richard III.

I come from a family that saw service in both the World Wars. My mother’s father was in France during the First World War and her two brothers fought in the Second War – one in the Royal Air Force, successfully evading capture at Dunkirk in 1940, and another with the Royal Navy in the Atlantic. On my father’s side of the family, my grandfather saw service in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the First War and later became an Air Raid Warden in Burton on Trent in World War II, whilst his brother was with the Royal Air Force in the Far East.

Talking to them sparked my own interest in military history which then developed to reading about battles and military campaigns – it was the part of the history lessons at school I liked most! When I had some pocket money I would buy books about battles and would always be scouring ‘junk shops’ for military cap badges, medals and the like.

Medal collecting led to me undertaking research into the lives of the individuals that had won them and in turn to research the battles in which they had fought. The next logical step was visiting some of those battlefields. Initially alone but later with friends and family, the visits developed into small guided tours with an emphasis on the human side of war and its effect on the people involved, not just the combatants but those back home or in the countries where the campaigns and battles were fought.

As well as general tours of the Western Front battlefields I also have a particular interest and knowledge in the involvement of the Canadian and Australian forces in both World Wars and have led a number of tours to the European battlefields where they fought as well as in the UK where they trained.

I also particularly enjoy taking small groups on family pilgrimages and undertaking the research that is involved in developing these tours. In particular, I have led a number of American groups and families to the Normandy battlefields of World War II. This led to the development of tours around particular American units including the 29th Division in the drive from the Normandy beachhead to St Lo and the Division’s battle to capture Brest in Brittany. In the UK I have also researched and developed tours around the US forces in the West Country in the run up to D Day including the Slapton Sands disaster and the development of the Woolacombe Infantry Training Centre in Devon.

I have significant experience of working with school groups and  was recently part of the guide team that delivered the Government initiative to take two students and a teacher from every English state school to the battlefields of France and Belgium between 2014 and 2019. I am currently a volunteer speaker for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and also help to clean and maintain CWGC headstones in local churchyards.

“Once again you’ve made our battlefields trip and amazing experience. Thank you for all the extra special investigations you do. We can’t imagine these trips without you!”
Teacher – School group

“Our trip has been the trip of a lifetime experience – your part made it absolutely awesome!”
Guest – Canadian Adult group

Iain Standen is CEO of the Bletchley Park Trust, the organisation that runs Bletchley Park the historic site of secret British code breaking activities during WWII and birthplace of the modern computer.

A former Regular Army officer in the Royal Corps of Signals, he served in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Cyprus, as well as on operational deployments to Northern Ireland (where he was Mentioned in Despatches), Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Iraq. He commanded at troop, squadron, unit and group level, graduated from the Army Staff College and served in a range of staff appointments. This extensive military experience allows him to provide a wide–ranging soldier’s insight on his battlefield tours.

As the son of an RAF officer and the grandson of an Army officer it could be said that the military and military history are in his blood. His interest in battlefields stretches back to his childhood, and he visited his first, Bosworth Field, over 30 years ago. Since then he has toured the battlefields of the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the United States, covering battles and campaigns from the Seven Years War to the Second World War. Whilst maintaining a broad interest in a range of campaigns, the American Civil War remains his favourite era. He began leading military battlefield tours with the troops under his command in 1987 and led military tours and staff rides throughout his Army career.

Iain has been working commercially for Anglia Battlefield Tours since 2001 and has guided tours for them on the battlefields of Waterloo, Ypres, Somme and Normandy.

He is a member of the American Civil War Roundtable (United Kingdom) and lectures on American Civil War subjects. He also maintains an interest in military history and battlefield preservation through membership of The Battlefields Trust, the Western Front Association and the Civil War Preservation Trust. He was an early member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides (member number 28) and completed his Validation in August 2006.

For over three decades Frank has had a successful career within the creative industry as a designer and creative director.

During that time, Frank also served 10 years in the 70 (Essex Yeomanry) Signal Squadron, part of 71st (Yeomanry) Signal Regiment (V), and had the distinction of having been the youngest qualified tradesman in the regiment by 12 months, at the age of 19.

Frank’s interest in battlefield guiding came from his father who served in BAOR and grandfathers who fought in WW2 – one in the Royal Artillery on the Western Front and the other in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front.

Frank has been battlefield guiding since 2006, specialising in Waterloo, the Great War, WW2 and more recently, Berlin, where in 2019 he was licensed to guide at the Sachsenhausen Memorial.

He also played an active role within the Guild and has held several positions on Council, including Members’ Representative, Brand Manager and Guild Secretary. 

In 2011 he was proud to be the first recipient of the Richard Holmes Memorial Award for Services to the Guild.

Frank is also a member of the Essex Yeomanry Association and a Life member of the Royal Signals Association.

Allan served for 22 years in the Regular Army in the 17^th/21^st Lancers and Queens Royal Lancers, a career which ended at the Armoured Fighting Vehicle Gunnery School, Lulworth.  Allan was later commissioned into the TA serving for a further 9 years firstly with the Dorset and later the Royal Wessex Yeomanry in Bovington where he began guiding battlefield tours.

Allan’s first battlefield tour as a guide was for the Yeomanry to Normandy in 1999.  He has since guided nearly 200 battlefield tours for both Regular and Territorial Army units, schools and numerous adult groups to the Western Front, North West Europe plus other campaigns outside of the two World Wars including Waterloo and Agincourt.  Allan has guided many ANZAC focused tours of the Western Front, 1916-1918.  Allan retired from teaching to give himself the time to be an active Battlefield Guide and works freelance for several companies and organisations.  Allan also regularly gives talks on Military History to a wide variety of audiences from those including very senior serving officers to local groups in the Dorset area and wider afield.

Allan is an Accredited Member of (Badge Number 66) of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and a current Validator for candidates on the Path to their own Badge.  He is a member of the Western Front Association, Royal Lancers Regimental Association and a Trustee for the Dorset Yeomanry Association.

Allan is an Alumnus of the Duke of York’s Royal Military School, Dover.  Whilst in the Army he studied and graduated through the Open University, later training as teacher at the University of Bath after which he taught History in a secondary school in Poole.  Allan was later appointed as the Headteacher of the Compass, the school responsible for providing Alternative Provision for young people in Weymouth, Dorset. Allan still lives in Weymouth with his wife Angela, who tolerates both his guiding and golf in exchange for holidays in the sun!  They have two grown up children.