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I am a freelance guide, historian and heritage professional. After retiring following ten years in the army as a Royal Artillery Officer, I became increasingly involved in interpreting and presenting battlefield heritage for the Battlefields Trust and The Royal British Legion. My interest in battlefield touring was triggered by noticing that the part of Germany in which we were training in the 1980s had been a battlefield in 1757. I had always been interested in military history and both my father and grandfather had fought in the world wars.

As a guide, my clients include  small and large groups, businesses as well as educational and military groups. I was an early supporter of the Guild of Battlefield Guides and been part of its validation team, responsible for assessing guides’ competence, since 2008. I instruct on courses teaching battlefield guides and have been Guide Co-ordinator for the Liberation Route Europe.

In 2012 I was elected to the British Commission for Military History. My published work includes two books on D Day and Normandy, chapters in British Army Guide to the Western Front, and articles in military history journals. I write a military history blog https://theobservationpost.com

My interest and knowledge of military history stretches from Caesar to the Cold War and my guiding experience covers much of Europe. Besides the world wars and the Napoleonic era, I am also interested in the mid C19th wars between Prussia, Austria and France and the Severn Years War.

Two of my books are on artillery in Normandy and I am currently writing a battlefield guide to artillery on the First Day of the Somme in publication. The artillery story of both world wars is a little neglected and I offer battlefield tours to tell the artillery story under the brand www.gunnertours.com

One speciality is providing military background for people researching their ancestry. I have been a researcher for a company that makes a popular ancestry-based TV programme and have appeared on television myself.

I have been privileged to support some of the British Army centenary staff rides as a subject matter expert alongside academic historians. My clients include many military units and headquarters. I run a website offering advice to military units planning staff rides, battlefield studies or realities of war tours. www.staffrideservices.com

The links between military and business strategy fascinate me. I offer a service to help organisations to learn from other people’s mistakes using examples from statecraft and military history. www.businessbattlefields.com

I chaired the Battlefields Trust from 2008-2015 and was involved in many projects to preserve, interpret and present many of the Battlefields of Britain, including the re-discovery of the battlefields of Bosworth.

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.

As a camp follower of an army officer father and army officer husband, Sue developed an interest in military history and battlefields. Her grandfather served with the Royal Horse Artillery in WW1 and her father with the Gordon Highlanders at the tail end of the Second World War. She has lived in several areas of ongoing conflict: Cyprus; Northern Ireland; Berlin and Korea where she was involved with the groups of returning Korean war veterans and their families on pilgrimage visits. She spent four years in the United States, visited 37 states and various American Civil War (and other) battlefields.  With her father and husband, she has lived in several parts of northern Germany. She joined the Guild in 2011 and became badged in 2019.

A qualified teacher for both primary and secondary pupils, with a BA Hons in Philosophy and politics, a PGCE, and an MPhil in History of Art, she has experience teaching and lecturing to school pupils, undergraduates, and interest groups.

Sue qualified as a City of London Guide in 2007 and a London Blue Badge Tourist Guide in 2009. She was course director for the London Blue Badge training course for six years and trained 120 guides. She also trains the site guides for Tower Bridge in London and is currently one of the course directors for the South East England Blue Badge training course.

Now qualified as a Blue Badge guide for most regions of England, she is accredited to guide many prestigious sites with battlefield connections such as the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, Churchill War Rooms, IWM, NAM, HMS Belfast, Dover Castle, Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral, Durham Cathedral, York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Rochester Cathedral, Hadrian’s Wall, several more castles and many art galleries and museums.

Sue has developed a wide range of walks and tours in London, and beyond, with war related themes such as the Duke of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill, Blitzed Brits, WW1 and WW2 walks, Battle of Britain, The Art and Literature of War, Castles and Conflicts etc. She is happy to design a bespoke tour for a family or larger group.

In England, she has led tours connected to the Romans in Britain, Wars of the Roses, The English Civil War and Jacobite Rebellions. In France and Belgium, she has been involved as a guide in tours associated with the First World War poets and particularly with the war experiences of Wilfred Owen.

Second World War tours include sites connected to the Battle of Britain, the D Day Museum at Portsmouth, associated embarkment sites of allied troops, Bletchley Park, and several sites connected to specialist units such as the secret auxiliary units and commandos. She is a regular visitor to the D Day landing beaches in Normandy.

Based near Birmingham, my guiding centres on, but is by no means restricted to, battles of all eras in and around the Midlands & Welsh Marches. I guide for a wide range of national and local organisations, small groups and individuals. I am Secretary of the Battlefields Trust’s Mercia Region.

My guiding is always on a not-for-profit basis or to raise funds for a pre-agreed charity. When presenting a battle I focus on the human aspects, aiming to bring the drama to life through some of history’s more colourful, but often forgotten, characters, through the recorded words of participants, and through the use of original artefacts and replicas. Born into a Diplomatic Service family I grew up amidst a wide variety of cultures, observing the importance of understanding the past to explain the present. After living behind the Iron Curtain, I served with the British Reserve Forces for 22 years during the Cold War. There I learnt how soldiers behave and armies work. After commanding a rifle company I was selected for international staff and liaison duties. Leading British & foreign regulars and reservists in a multi-national HQ, I was privileged to engage with foreign traditions, cultures and military thinking vastly different to the English-speaking experience.

Battlefield visitors often want to gain leadership and management insights. In presenting these aspects I draw on my experience over some 30 years as a senior manager in the public, private and voluntary sectors as well as my formal qualifications. They include an MPA (a public & voluntary sector specific MBA), the Army Staff College’s Reserves Command & Staff course, & the Emergency Planning College’s Strategic Command Course. On the basis of my experience The Chartered Management Institute elected me as a Fellow and the Institute of Directors as a Member.

Research into all eras of military history fascinates me, as does any opportunity to present a battle from a fresh angle. For example I used a tour of Naseby as a case study on “Prejudiced Thinking” for a public sector senior training day.

In 2016 I was awarded the Guild’s prestigious David Chandler prize for my research work.