November is a Month of Remembrance and like many, I am sure you had your Two Minutes Silence, many do so on the declared Remembrance Sunday in a local church and many at 11:00 on 11 November, no matter what the day. This year, as ever, it was both moving and fitting to be standing…
This is not intended to capture all conflicts and military operations since 1952, nor is it intended to be a history lesson on the conflicts of recent military operations. But it is intended to highlight the fact that the British forces have been busy almost every year. Malaya 1948-60Lasting from 1948 until 1960, the Malayan…
So often we associate wars as long-lasting and devastating, World War One over four years and World War Two almost six, but what about a war that lasted just 38 minutes? The Anglo-Zanzibar War was fought between the United Kingdom and Zanzibar, an island country in the Indian Ocean. The ‘War’ was fought on 27…
So often on a battlefield tour, people are fascinated at the World War One Memorial Plaque, often better known as The Dead Man’s Penny or sometimes The Widows Penny, that was given to the family of the fallen in World War One, and so often the comment ‘I can remember my Gran or a Great…
During battlefield tours I have often spoken about the need, for the first time, for a ‘The Home Front’ during World War One, how industry was required to support the war effort; and that the Great War was the first true war on an industrial scale. All bought about by the sheer magnitude and demand…
Many of you who have joined me in Normandy exploring the D-Day beaches of World War Two will have heard of Company Sergeant Major Stanley Hollis, who was awarded the only Victoria Cross on 6 June 1944; but his was not the only medal of that calibre to be won that day. The other medal…
One of the most memorial pictures to come out of the Titanic Disaster was of a newsboy standing in Trafalgar Square selling the newspapers that told the world of the ship’s sinking, the picture was taken on 16 April 1912, just 24 hours after the Titanic went down. The newsboy that morning was a young sixteen-year-old Ned Parfett often known as The Titanic Newsboy.
We often hear on television that as a country the United Kingdom faces the threat of unhealthy eating and diet and all the associated health risks, indeed one TV presenter went as far as to claim that the average diet today is less healthy than at the height of World War Two! This got me…
Much has been written about Captain Noel Chavasse being the most decorated officer of the First World War, and many of you will have joined me as we stood by his grave and tried to understand what drove him to achieve such levels, normally with one of the group reading his citation. As a reminder…
Here in the United Kingdom almost every week we hear stories of racist comments; sadly all too often on the sports field and not always by the spectators, whilst I fully agree that they have no place at all, I wonder if such people know the story of Walter Tull. Walter, the son of a…