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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. Graeme’s ancestor John Cooper fought at Waterloo in the 7th Hussars. In WW2 Graeme’s father Johnny Cooper was one of David Stirling’s originals 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.

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. In 2025 the company found a new home with a fellow Guild member.

Graeme is a member of the Battlefields Trust and Waterloo Association. He and his wife live in Essex. Graeme enjoys golf, photography, dog walking and chess.

His pictorial presentations and talks are all listed on SPEAKERNET

“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 families ,military groups, veterans, civilian clubs, 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. He became a Fellow of the Guild in 2025. 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 specialities are taking families to retrace the steps of their Great War or WW2 ancestors and, for military groups, 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.

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.

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.

Since 2005 we cater for national- and international groups under the brand DRG Battlefield Tours & Books. We guide both larger civilian/ military (in co-operation with fellow GBG-battlefield guides and tour-operators ) and bespoke individual battlefield tours in following areas:

• ‘Airwar 40-45’ Battlefieldtours around former Luftwaffe airfield ‘Deelen’ (near Arnhem) and ‘Lufwaffe radarsite ‘Tiger’ on Dutch Isle of Terschelling
• Market Garden 1944 battlefieldtours: Eindhoven area (101 US Airb.Div), Nijmegen area (82.US Airb.Div.) and Arnhem (1.British Airborne Div).
• Transportation available for groups up to 8 pers. Coaches for larger groups on request
• Accredited Guide of Liberation Route Europe, member of SGLO (Study Group Airwar )
• We are proud to have served to following clients in recent past (a.o): British Royal Marines, Dutch Royal Marines, 39 Signals Regiment UK, Martin Kaule Tours Berlin, Albatros Travel Denmark, LGB Battlefieldtours USA, Royal Navy/ HMS Kent, WW2 Museum New Orleans, LGB Tours USA/ WW2 Round Table Hist.Society, Dorenweerd College Doorwerth NL, Nat. Military Museum Soesterberg NL, Staff 11.Airmobile Brigade NL, DMO Dutch Army, Rijks Vastgoed NL, Lukkien Video Productions NL, Amstour Travel, Nat. Society of Reserve Officers NVRO, etc,

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.

Mike holds Accredited Guide status having earned Badge No. 40. His first tour as a guide was in the early 1980’s and he has led groups all over the world since then. Mike spent nearly thirty years in education, ending his career as a member of the Senior Leadership Team at one of the most prestigious schools for girls in the country.

Mike now works full time as a tour manager, historian, battlefield guide, consultant and researcher. He tours across the battlefields and historical locations of Western and Central Europe leading large groups and small private tours with guests from many countries. He considers his special interests to be the WW1 battlefields, Berlin and Eastern Europe during the Cold War, the Holocaust. However, having led groups in India and southern Africa he also considers this to be areas of interest and experience.

Mike is a public speaker on cruise ships and conferences across the world as well as organisations in the UK. Mike has experience as a Tour Manager for Cultural Tours across the world. He is also a published author with books on the battlefields of the Western Front.

Mike is a member of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides, the Western Front Association, the Institute of Travel and Tourism and European Tour Operators Association.

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 International Guild of Battlefield Guides (member number 28) and completed his Validation in August 2006.

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.

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.