I first visited the Somme and Ypres battlefields back in 1966 when I was just eighteen. I was returning from a holiday in France and by chance found myself to be driving through the Picardy region, and a nearby river called the River Somme. At this juncture in my life I knew relatively little about the Great War, a subject sadly not included in our history studies (as thankfull is the case now). . I remember stopping to see a truly massive memorial which dominated the skyline, which I later discovered was the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme (left). I was taken aback that the almost 73,000 plus names on the memorial were not all those British and South African soldiers killed in the battle (as shocking as that would have been...) but ‘just’ those soldiers whose bodies were either never found, or whose remains were found but could not be identified, the latter being those servicemen whose headstones today bear the words of Rudyard Kipling ‘A soldier of the Great War known unto God’. I found this figure difficult to comprehend, especially as this reality became worse the more I learnt about what happened here. I could not help thinking that I was the same age (at that time) as so many of those names who were staring at me from the memorial walls. From that moment my enduring interest in the Great War was set alight! On retuning to the Somme battlefield after this first experience I found difficulty, like so many casual visitors to the battlefield today, in transforming the landscape in my minds eye back to how it must have looked back in 1916. I wanted to know exactly where the front line trenches were, and where exactly the many individual actions took place. More than anything I felt a need to understand, as best one can, just what it must have been like for those who were there, such as my grandfather who, though injured on the Somme battlefield in 1916, thankfully survived. Since these first visits I went on to raise a family and to pursue a career in the police service (Metropolitan and Dorset Police) retiring as a Superintendent in 1996. Throughout this time my interest in the First World War, and the Somme, Ypres and Verdun Battles in particular, continued. I also took every opportunity possible to return to the battlefields of the Western Front, often taking groups of friends and colleagues on three-day tours. Immediately after retiring from the police service at just 49 I knew what my next career was to be! I took the plunge and formed Somme Battlefield Tours Ltd in 1997, more as a way of sharing my interest with others, as opposed to running the venture as a hard-nosed commercial business (the same principle continues today more than 27 years later). For this reason I personally organised and accompanied every single one of the many, many conducted tours I, and later my wife and I, have undertaken since starting our small battlefield tour company (my wife Annette joined me in running our tours in 2004). Annette and I have, however, always avoided the temptation to expand what we do beyond the reach and scope of our personal involvement. This is important to us as we want to provide a quality personal service, which cannot be found with so many larger companies today. This way you always deal with us personally, and not an employee! Whilst running our conducted tours we met so many people trying to find their war around the battlefields, without knowing what happened where. One day we though 'why not commit our tried and tested conducted tours to paper?’ And that was it. In 2010 we decided to focus all our energies to providing our unique self-drive tours to the Somme 1916 and Ypres battlefields of the Great War, based on our many years experience of taking small groups. Our self-drive tours proved immensely popular - as you may have seen from the many testimonials we have received dating back to 1997 (too many to show here). Our company Somme (and Ypres) Battlefield Tours Ltd, is now the only dedicated WW1 self-drive battlefield tour company to have been in existence since 1997. Organising our tours has always been a labour of love with each conducted or self-drive tour taking on a character of its own. Without exception, everyone Annette and I have met over many years of professional guiding has been thoroughly good company, and all have found the visiting the Somme and Ypres battlefields a most moving, interesting and rewarding experience. Well I think that’s far too much waffle about us. Once again, thank you very much for visiting our web site. Any comments or suggestions would be most welcome. Very best wishes James & Annette . James is an Associate Member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides and Western Front Assocation

Somme Battlefield Tours Ltd Wimborne Dorset BH21 1EJ +44 (0) 7776 195773 or +44 (0) 1202 840520 info@battlefield-tours.com

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Somme Battlefield Tours Ltd Tel: 07776 195773 or 01202 840520 info@battlefield-tours.com

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Above: Just one of over 300 groups we’ve taken on a tour of the Somme and Ypres battlefields since 1997 About Us