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Steve is one of the leading military historians on the Gallipoli campaign. Even though this is his prime passion, he also has in-depth knowledge of many British military campaigns and battles that include Waterloo to the end of the Second World War. Stephen is a freelance battlefield guide, author and researcher specialising in British military history, from the redcoats to khaki.

He has written several books; his first book in the Battleground Europe series, Gallipoli – Gully Ravine (Pen & Sword 2002) had high acclaim, along with its follow-on volumes; Anzac The Landing (Pen & Sword 2008), Suvla: August Offensive (Pen & Sword 2011) and Anzac: Sari Bair (Pen & Sword 2014). British and commonwealth military history has continued to have been a successful theme, with Uniforms & Equipment of the British Army in World War One (Schiffer Books, 2005), the first serious work on the subject. Recently Stephen co-authored Gallipoli: The Dardanelles Disaster in Soldiers’ Words and Photographs (Bloomsbury 2015) with Richard van Emden and is working on Walking Gallipoli, to be published in 2018. Stephen’s Battleground Europe guidebooks have all been translated in to Turkish.

When not writing, Stephen is on the Battlefield, continuing his research and guiding groups. The best way to study a campaign is to walk in the footsteps of those involved, whether in the grasslands of Zululand, the mud of Flanders or the beaches of Gallipoli.

Stephen is a Trustee of the Gallipoli Association and a member of the Western Front Association and Orders and Medals Research Society. He is also a director of Great War Digital Ltd (http://www.greatwardigital.com/), home of the WW1 mapping Linesman GPS product.

Originally commissioned into The Gordon Highlanders, I served for twenty years as an infantry officer in the British Army. This included tours at regimental duty as a rifle platoon and close reconnaissance platoon commander, adjutant and company commander. I have also served as an aide de-camp, infantry tactics adviser to the Kuwaiti Army, close reconnaissance instructor at the Land Warfare Centre and a staff officer at brigade and divisional levels.

As a civilian, I have worked in West Africa as a security sector reform consultant to the UN; then as a humanitarian programme manager and operations director reducing the negative impacts of rogue ex-combatant groups small arms, ammunition and unexploded ordnance in conflict-prone communities.

My military service, including operational tours in Northern Ireland, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and my time working in Africa has given me a solid grounding in the theory and conduct of military operations and the impact of war. I have a Masters degree in Military Strategic Studies and I am a graduate of the Italian Joint Forces Higher Command and Staff College. I bring this experience with a lifelong interest in military history to my battlefield tours, offering clients a coherent strategic, operational and tactical perspective. I work hard to ensure that the memory of those who fought is properly honoured and respected.

I am a fluent Italian speaker and can get by at colloquial level in German which helps considerably with tour management.

I am accredited with the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and work as a freelance guide for a number of companies, including Staffride, Albatross Tours, Galloway Travel and Battle Honours. This means that I work with adult groups, schools and military units. I also work privately for individuals, families and groups to deliver bespoke tours in Italy, France, Belgium and Berlin.

Dudley Giles has been an active battlefield guide for over 25 years and was an early member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides.

A former British Army officer, Dudley managed, in a career spanning nearly 34 years, to serve a third of his time in North West Europe (Germany and Belgium), a third in the UK (including three residential tours in Northern Ireland) and a third in ‘exotic’ locations such as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Canada, Croatia, Kosovo and the flanks of NATO (Norway and Turkey). In 1990 he attended the Army Command and Staff Course, and, in 2001, was serving as NATO’s senior military police officer during the climactic events post 9/11. In 2006/7 he deployed to Afghanistan as General Richards’ senior police advisor and his last appointment in the Army before finally retiring in 2012 he was Deputy Provost Marshal (Army).

In 2006/7 Dudley found himself on the modern battlefields of Afghanistan and was able to help soldiers, diplomats and journalists understand the historical similarities between the present and past experience of British soldiers in that country. On his return he acted as the chief battlefield guide for the very first Help for Heroes Big Battlefield Bike Ride and continued to support the charity in that capacity until 2013. This experience eventually led him to set up a specialist touring company -‘Battlefields by Bike.

Dudley took his first degree in Law (LL.B (Hons) at the University of Leeds in 1979 and later a Masters Degree in British First World Studies (2010) – graduating with Distinction.

When not running his own tours or carrying out research, Dudley works as an independent contractor for schools, military groups, families and other battlefield touring companies.

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.

I qualified as a Guild Guide in 2004, having left the RAF in 2003, where I served for 18 years as an RAF Police NCO at various bases in the UK and abroad and completed tours in Northern Ireland, the Falklands and in Macedonia on a NATO Peace Keeping mission. At present I assist students in attaining diplomas at various levels of education.

I have had an interest in military history since the age of 13 when I was introduced to my Great Grandfather Private G/5203 Frank Smith who served in the 7th and 8th Buffs in WW1 at the Pozieres Memorial on the Somme. Since then I have traced his war from 1915 to 1918 and now assist others in doing the same thing. It is both a passion and a calling to me.

I now work for Adaptable Travel where I am lucky enough to conduct battlefield tours with school groups and I also specialise in taking adult groups across as well. One of my main areas of focus is taking families on small battlefield pilgrimages to locate where their family members served. It is something I love doing.

I am an author having had two books on Norfolk in WW1 and WW2 published in 2012 and 2014 and I am currently working on my third book which will be about the Norfolk Regiment on the Western Front.

One of my other passions is the air war in both WW1 and WW2 and I conduct tours looking at aspects of these aerial battles. Living in Norfolk provides me with access to subjects such as the Zeppelin raids carried out over the county in 1915 and the Commonwealth and US bomber wars in WW2. I also love guiding the Battle of Britain having been brought up with stories of that time whilst growing up in East Kent.

I am comfortable guiding all aspects of WW1 and WW2 in Europe and revel in being provided with new challenges where I am offered the chance to study and walk the ground for specific unit actions.

As one gentleman said once said to me when I took him to see where his father had fought on the Western Front,

‘You helped to put the meat on the bones of my dad’s story.’

Tim has guided tours to battlefields and Remembrance sites since 2008, leading schools parties, groups of veterans, serving military and the general public.

Before this he served in the Royal Navy for 35 years as a Gunnery and Air Defence Officer. This included service at sea in the Falklands and in the First Gulf War, as well as deployments afloat to many other parts of the world, and shore postings working with colleagues from the British Army, Royal Air Force and other nations. During his naval career, his life-long interest in naval history led him to take part in several battlefield studies, initially as the maritime expert, and subsequently broadening his interests to encompass land and air campaigns of the 20th Century.

Whilst preferring to look at battlefields with a nautical or amphibious flavour, such as Gallipoli, Dunkirk or Normandy, he is equally at home guiding on the Somme, in Flanders or other land-locked regions.

He is a Westcountryman by birth, with, perhaps not surprisingly, something of a maritime interest from an early age. After many years in Portsmouth, enjoying living near a major focus of the nation’s naval heritage, he has recently returned to his Devonshire roots. He joined the Guild in 2008, was awarded his Badge in 2014 and became the Guild’s Validation Secretary in 2015, a role he relinquished in 2020 when he joined the Management Board and was appointed as Guild Secretary.

David’s background includes 45 years of military service in both the Regular Army and Reserve. He graduated from the Royal Military College Duntroon in December 1975 into the Royal Australian Infantry Corps. He has completed a wide variety of regimental, training and staff postings, including operational tours of duty in Uganda with the Commonwealth Military Training Team (1983) and in Cambodia with the UN (1991-92). In 2006-07 he was deployed as an Operations Analyst in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2004-05 he served as the ADF Liaison Officer to the USMC-led headquarters with other international assistance forces based in Thailand during the tsunami relief operation.

His keen interest for military history is long-standing and widely varied. This includes being involved as a specialist technical adviser to the movies “Breaker Morant” and “Gallipoli” which were filmed in South Australia in the early 1980s where he was posted at the time.

While researching various aspects of family involvement in WW1, he was invited to co- author the history of the 19th Infantry Battalion AIF. It was one of the many untold stories of the Great War and “Fighting Nineteenth” was published in June 2011. As a result of this work, he has set up his own business AIF Research Services which assists families and other interested groups to track their First AIF ancestors both in Australia, as well as providing advice for potential battlefield tourists. David is regularly booked to speak to local historical societies on a variety of WW1 topics.

David’s interest in battlefield guiding was sparked by a 1981 visit to the Gallipoli area which was at that time relatively untouched since 1915. Here he fell in with a small group of fellow countrymen also making that pilgrimage. At that time he was teaching military history at the Officer Cadet School Portsea, and the role of de facto battlefield guide fell to him. Since 2006 he has regularly guided at Gallipoli and also on the Western Front where he gets to practise his French. He is also involved in the planning for some 2018 memorial events to be held in the Péronne and Mont St Quentin areas. He has recently added colonial forts of New South Wales to his portfolio of guiding locations.