Find a Guide

Explore the world’s most trusted directory of battlefield guides

The Find a Guide directory details all those Accredited Members who have chosen to advertise their expertise and services as guides on the Guild website.  Each of these has passed our Accreditation Programme in which they have demonstrated the skills needed for us to say that they are high-quality guides who will give you a great tour.

When searching for a guide, we recommend that you filter by battle/campaign, country or capability and then click on the name of an Accredited Guide to read their biography. In stating their expertise and services, Accredited Members should be able to guide the particular battle or campaign on the battlefield. Sometimes physically guiding on that battlefield may be impossible or impractical, or it is presentation services that are required, in which case the Accredited Member should be able to guide the battle or campaign “remotely”.

As you will see, most Accredited Members have contact details by which you can contact them directly, and some have their own website, a Tripadvisor and/or a Google Review Page. If  you are having difficulty in contacting them, please contact them via the Guild Secretary  via our Contacts Page.

Please note, the Guild does not recommend or endorse any of the commercial products or companies of the members listed below. We are not responsible for checking that those listed below have complied with the relevant legislation or regulations in the jurisdictions they are based or guide in. Many are members of ETOA or other local guiding associations and some have a local authorisation to work with children or vulnerable adults. But it is your responsibility to ensure they meet all the criteria you need for them to work with your group.

Finally, this list shows only our Accredited Members. Our Ordinary Members are not listed here and if you would like to check whether a particular individual is a member of the Guild, or for any other further help (for example satisfying a request for which you cannot seem to find a guide), please contact the Guild Secretary via our Contacts Page.

Many Guides can develop bespoke personalised tours and can research where particular ancestors might have fought or died based on information which you may have, and this is generally part of their service. If you want to advice on following a particular ancestor and / or help and advice on researching military aspects of family history, there are several Accredited Members who may be able to assist with your genealogical enquiries.  A list of those members is here; if you would like to seek their assistance, contact details can be found by selecting their profile from those shown on this page.

Battle

Ewan Carmichael

Accredited Guide Number: 84

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.

John Cotterill

Accredited Guide Number: 10

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

Christopher Finn

Accredited Guide Number: 42

Christopher Finn served in the RAF for 33 years as a navigator, primarily on the Buccaneer, and was a weapons and tactics specialist.  As a Wing Commander he was the UK’s LGB specialist in AHQ Riyadh during Operation GRANBY.  His final flying tour was as OC the Navigator & Airman Aircrew School.  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.

Since 2003 Chris has developed and led over 30 staff rides and battlefield tours covering the subjects and battles listed below.  These have predominantly covered the influence of air power on the battlefield but also 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 also lectures on Military History to a wide range of audiences including, recently, a lecture on the role of the Royal Artillery in the Imjin River Battle of the Korean War.

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, became the Chief Validator in 2015 and became the Director of Validation (now Accreditation Director) in 2017.  He was elected the fourth Fellow of the Guild at the 2020 Annual Conference.

Brian Shaw

Accredited Guide Number: 18

Brian Shaw is an Ex Warrant Officer in the Parachute Regiment who has been leading
battlefield tours for the past twenty years. Born in Nottingham in 1958 he joined the Army in
1974 as a Junior Soldier, progressing through a busy career specializing in Battlefield
Communications. Brian become a Warrant Officer Class 1 in 1995 and retired from the
Army in January 2013 after 38 years’ service.

Brian has had an extensive career serving across the globe, in Northern Ireland on operations
and from South Africa to the Arctic Circle and from California to Hong Kong, the long way
round, on training. This long Infantry experience and knowledge of tactics, give him a
soldier’s eye for ground and the implications of terrain on the weapon systems of any
chosen period.

Brian has a long-held interest in military history, particularly the Second World War. He
combines his own experiences and his knowledge of history to put his audience on a tour
within the experience of what the soldiers of the day saw, felt and experienced.
Whilst Brian’s passion is for the Second World War and specifically NW Europe 1944/45
(D–Day to the war’s end) but with a wide military history knowledge he is happy working with
groups on the battlefields of the Great War or others.

Brian has assisted in and personally planned and led tours on the Battle of Waterloo, The
Western Front, Gallipoli, France and Belgium 1940, Malta, the fighting in Normandy,
Operation Market–Garden, Aachen, the Hurtgen Forest, the Rhine Crossing (Plunder and
Varsity) and the Ardennes Offensive. Italy – Anzio and Cassino.

Marc Yates

Accredited Guide Number: 90

I was born and brought up in Jersey, Channel Islands and from an early age became passionate about its history as well as military history generally.

One of my grandfathers had wartime service with the Canadian Infantry on the Western Front in WW1 and the other was a career soldier with the Royal Army Service Corps from the 1920s to 1950. My paternal great-grandfather had also served with the Royal Garrison Artillery for 21 years including the whole of WW1 on the Western Front. My father, whilst not joining up, did an apprenticeship at the Royal Woolwich Arsenal in the 1950s, a very interesting time in post war weapons systems development. It is hardly surprising that military history would help form my interests and I even contemplated a military career myself. However, that didn’t happen, and I followed a career as a lawyer for 35 years.

I got into guiding accidentally as a result of our law firm entertaining some visiting conference lawyers on a coach tour. I thought that the “pre-taped” commentary was so bad that I grabbed the microphone and gave my first guided tour! I was hooked and did tours whenever I could and upon retirement from my legal career, I set up my guiding business and at the same time became a licensed public service vehicle driver so I could legally undertake driver-guiding.

I focus on providing personal service for small groups as a driver-guide, although I am happy to guide larger parties. I believe in providing a complete experience to my clients to help them get the best of their exploration of a battlefield and the local environment. I love drawing in other aspects of history, as well as introducing disciplines like archaeology and geology to better understand the topography.

Most of my guiding is in the Channel Islands, which have an incredible history of battles, military history and fortifications extending as far back as at least the Iron Age, then all the way to WW2, when the Islands were the only part of the British Isles to be occupied by Nazi German forces for 5 years. However, I also guide elsewhere in Europe, particularly in France which is only about 15 miles away at its closest and which I can see from my garden!

I particularly enjoy the educational element of battlefield guiding – be it for individual clients, a class of school children or a military unit undertaking battlefield study exercises for visiting military units. My mother was a teacher, so I suppose that is where I get that from!

Finally, whilst not yet published, my research will hopefully result in books on the Hundred Years’ War in the Channel Islands; an answer to why the Channel Islands become some of the most heavily Nazi fortified places in Europe; and the life story of an extraordinary pair of sisters who served on the Western Front as F.A.N.Y.s in WW1 and then as senior officers working with the S.O.E. in WW2!

 

Middle Ages100 Years War 1337-1453British Civil Wars...Wars of the Roses 1455-87English Civil War 1642-1651Channel Islands in the Civil War18th CenturyAmerican War of Independence 1775-1783Jersey 1779 & 81Siege of Gibraltar 1779-8319th CenturyNapoleonic WarsPeninsular War 1808-1320th CenturyFirst World War 1914-18Western Front Allies of WW1Soldiers of the British Empire WW1Canadians on the Western FrontWestern Front - The beginning (1914)Mons 1914Western Front - Stalemate (1915)Neuve Chappelle 1915Western Front - Counterattack (1916)Battle of the Somme 1916Flers - Courcelette 1916Western Front - Attrition (1917)Arras 1917Vimy Ridge 1917Messines 1917Third Battle of Ypres 1917Passchendaele 1917Western Front - Defeat and Victory (1918)Naval Battles WW1Other WW1 themesWomen and war WW1Logistics WW1Medical WW1Second World War 1939-45Occupation of Europe (1940)Fall of France 1940The Occupation of the Channel Islands WW2Mediterranean theatre WW2Siege of Malta 1940-42Naval battles WW2Battle of the Atlantic WW2WW2 Commando and other Raids in Occupied EuropeChannel Islands raids 1942-3Operation Chariot - St Nazaire 1942Resistance in Occupied Europe WW2Battle of Gilieres 1944 - Haute SavoieFrench Resistance WW2S.O.E. in WW2Liberation of Europe (1944)D-Day - Op Overlord 1944Normandy Campaign and breakout 1944Op Market Garden 1944 - Arnhem Eindhoven NijmegenOther WW2 themesWomen and war WW2Life under Nazi Occupation WW2Hitler's Atlantic Wall

BelgiumChannel IslandsEngland...EuropeFranceGibraltarMaltaNetherlandsPortugalSpainUnited KingdomWestern Europe

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