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Simon has been interested in military history since he was a child. He first visited the battlefields on family holidays and soon became fascinated with D Day and the Normandy campaign. In his teens he developed an interest in the First World War and led his first guided tours to the former battlefields of the Western Front while still at university. After graduating with a history degree, he went on to train as a teacher and for 15 years ran annual school tours to the Western Front.

From 2014, Simon ran the prestigious and multi award-winning First World War Centenary Battlefield Tours Programme – a UK government funded initiative which saw 8,500 students and teachers visit the former battlefields of the Western Front. Simon led more than 90 of these tours and as the programme’s lead for on-site education became an internationally recognised expert in leading students and teachers on the battlefields. He has also led tours for adult organisations including universities. Simon also has a passion for historical research and is able to bring the battlefields to life with personal stories, while also placing these stories in the immediate and wider historical context.

Simon is a member of the British Commission for Military History and the Western Front Association.

Simon retired from the British Army in November 2022, and qualified as a badged guide (Badge 108) in May 2020.

He originally served in the Royal Air Force before leaving to pursue a career in the oil industry, and also serving as a reserve officer. Rather to his surprise he ended up joining the Regular Army 9 years ago.

Simon has served on operations in Gulf War 1, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq (where he ran Basrah Fire Brigade) and twice as an aviation planner in Afghanistan (including with the US Marine Corps) and has worked at battlegroup, brigade and divisional level .

He has served as the Operations Officer in the Attack Helicopter Force HQ, and as the aviation specialist in the Collective Training Group at the Land Warfare Centre. He delivered training to brigade and division HQs, particularly in the use of aviation and air land integration.

Simon has recently guided tours to Normandy, Sicily and the Western Front battlefields of World War 1.

He is particularly interested in Normandy in WW2 (particularly the British 6^th Airborne Division) and in all aspects of air power in WW1 and WW2.

He is also passionate about the American Civil War, particularly Gettysburg and the Eastern theatre battles.

Michael’s interest in battlefields started whilst researching his great uncle, whose name was on the local war memorial in his home town. This took him on a long journey through the UK and France. He eventually found his grave in Belgium, bringing closure to a family mystery of over 80 years and allowing family members from as far as Australia to visit his grave and pay tribute to his memory.

This discovery led Michael into researching many battles and physically walking the ground enhancing his knowledge and understanding of tactics used on both sides. Armed with this knowledge, he began organising individual, group and bespoke tours to Ypres in Belgium, Normandy in France and Arnhem in Holland which he continues to this day.

As a former Warrant Officer, with over 38 years in the British Army, his operational tours included Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, and exercises in Canada, Cyprus, Kenya and Poland. He has worked with many multinational forces giving him a thorough understanding of how other countries’ militaries operate. He was employed in many roles in the training, administration and welfare of over a hundred strong workforce during peace time and on operations. He was often called upon to plan, conduct and deliver intense training packages for servicemen as part of their continuous personal development and annual mandatory training.

In 2010, Michael gave evidence as part of the Iraq Enquiry, headed up by Sir John Chilcot, regarding the problems incurred during Operation Telic.

In 2020, together with his wife Jane, he set up their company “Avalon Tour de Force” which specialises in family research, bespoke group and individual battlefield tours, military history presentations and living history shows where they travel to schools, public and private events.

Michael was awarded Badge No 117 after completing the Guild’s validation scheme in November 2024.

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.

Graeme is a serving Army officer with a background in military logistics. He has served full time and part time for over 34 years in a range of command and staff appointments.

He has been a member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides since 2014 and became a badged guide in 2021. His interest in the military started at a young age as he learned of the service of his grandfathers in the Second World War, one as a Royal Engineer, the other as a Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineer in 79th Armoured Division.

He has led a number of military group tours to the WW2 sites of Normandy, Monte Cassino, Sicily, Arnhem and Berlin before developing an interest in the Western Front during WW1.

Graeme has designed and led the Commonwealth Soldier programme taking school and community groups from SE England to the battlefields of France and Belgium to study the contributions made by Commonwealth troops in WW1. He has also delivered a number of tours in the UK and overseas has had the opportunity to lead a tour to the Falkland Islands. In 2018 he supported the Army Cadet Armistice 100 programme to the Somme and the National Muslim Armistice commemorations at Woking’s Indian Army Muslim burial ground memorial.

He is particularly interested in the human aspects of conflict and bringing the personal stories of those who served to life. In addition to leading groups, Graeme also has an interest in research and has delivered a number of WW1 community research projects, presentations and events as well as delivering individual bespoke research projects for families wanting to know more about their relatives.

He is a volunteer speaker for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and a member of the Western Front Association.

Advance Battlefield Tours mission Statement is: To create and deliver – private, corporate & school tours which will entertain, educate, inform, teach, to even test individuals or groups of any size, tailored to any level of complexity, with any style of accommodation, over any length of time.

Our tours are delivered with care, great flexibility, knowledge, clarity, understanding, humour & unbridled enthusiasm for client needs & subject matter!  Therefore we want you to “Smell that black powder & taste the cordite! “

Tim followed his family tradition and was commissioned into the Welsh Guards in 1974, where he served in every theatre upon which the regiment partook for nine years.

He has served for a total of 29 years.  After the “regular” army Tim continued with the Territorial Army; – (similar to the US National Guard), in The Queens Own Yeomanry (A cavalry regiment in the role of deep penetration, armoured reconnaissance) up to the appointment of Squadron Leader but later as a staff officer, second in command and training officer for other regiments.  His experiences in the military have included both operational command and staff appointments.

He been a member of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides since 2007, and holds Badge number 71.  Widely experienced and well read, as a professional Battlefield Guide, Tim has led many dozens of tours across Western, Southern and Central Europe; (the majority, small business and personal tours) for 18 years.

New recent additions are the mystical secret Suffolk coast’s military heritage and the vast array of USAAF 8^th Air Force Bases across East Anglia with the “Masters of the Air” Series having been on Apple TV.

All these tours have consistently reviewed Politics, Strategic aims, Operational Requirements, Ego, Command, Control, Intelligence (Gathering, Interpretation, Analysis & Dissemination), Leadership, Morale, Training, Weaponry, Logistics, Ground and Conditions. Most of all, to ensure a clarity of message and understanding to the tour participants, no matter their previous knowledge.

Always keen to research something new, Tim welcomes the challenge of conducting new tours, for forgotten wars, to unsung places.

I am a serving Army officer and qualified as a badged guide in May 2020.  I have served with the Household Cavalry both operationally and as a mounted cavalryman on state ceremonial and public duties, as well as working on the staff in the wider Army.  Military experience of the Middle East, Balkans and Afghanistan.

I have been visiting battlefields for many years and have led a number of small group tours, for military personnel, veterans and members of the general public.  Very interested in all matters involving the cavalry where I like to think I have a unique insight, as well as armoured operations where I also have significant practical knowledge.  I continue to develop and learn my craft, and I am currently studying for an MA in the History of Great Britain and the First World War.

My fascination with military history ignited during my primary school years, thanks to a teacher who had been a Spitfire pilot in the Second World War. His stories were utterly captivating. In my early teens, I had joined the Air Cadets, firmly ensnaring my interest in the military. I enlisted in the Canadian Army, where I embarked on operational tours in Egypt, Israel (Golan Heights), and undertook two tours in the former Yugoslavia. My military career was diverse, ranging from instructing recruits, providing trades level training for soldiers, to conducting leadership training for NCOs and officers.

After my second tour in the former Yugoslavia, I transitioned to a role with the United Nations, which took me back to the Balkans. Here, I served in Croatia, Bosnia, and North Macedonia in senior management positions, further broadening my experience and understanding of international military operations.

Currently, I live in the Republic of North Macedonia, where my passion for military history continues to thrive. Remarkably, the Dojran Battlefield is literally in my backyard. I am proud to be a founding member and the President of the Macedonian Front Society, a local Non-Government Organisation dedicated to the protection, preservation, and promotion of the battlefields that remain from the Macedonian Campaign.

My expertise and primary interest lie in the Macedonian Campaign of 1915-1918, known by various names such as the Salonika Front, Front d’Orient, Southern Front, or Macedonian Front, depending on the country the soldiers who served were from.

This lesser-known campaign offers a rich and fascinating tour experience for anyone interested in the First World War. Whether you’re looking for a family pilgrimage or wish to conduct a detailed battlefield study, I am committed to providing a custom-designed tour that meets your specific interests and requirements.