Warfare in News

Posted on Tuesday 7th January
Celebrated authors and leading battlefield guide experts Major and Mrs Holt are to be awarded the WW1 Centenary Medal from the Conseil General de le Somme.
The award, which is for their contribution to 'Remembrance Tourism' and dissemination of knowledge of the First World War, will be one of only six medals to be awarded. They will also be the first and the only Britons to receive it. The award will be presented in a ceremony taking place in Amiens on 22 January 2014.
Tonie and Valmai are well known authors in the field of Military history and literature. Their knowledge of World War One is extensive, having spent over 35 years researching and leading tours to the battlefields and writing books about them. They have located, described and recorded some 1,000 memorials to our fighting services in mainland Europe and through their books have made the battlefields accessible to the general public.
In 1978 they pioneered the modern battlefield tour and founded the highly successful Major and Mrs Holt's Battlefield Tour Company. They later took over the running of the Royal British Legion Pilgrimage programme.
Their Battlefield Guides to the Somme, Ypres, Gallipoli, Normandy, Market-Garden, the WW1 Western Front – North and South are among the best-selling books to those areas, each known to local specialists as ‘The Bible’ . Their other works include Poets of the Great War, My Boy Jack? - the biography of Rudyard Kipling’s son, John - and In Search of the Better Ole, the biography of First World War Cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather, also published by Pen and Sword Books.
The award, which is for their contribution to 'Remembrance Tourism' and dissemination of knowledge of the First World War, will be one of only six medals to be awarded. They will also be the first and the only Britons to receive it. The award will be presented in a ceremony taking place in Amiens on 22 January 2014.
Tonie and Valmai are well known authors in the field of Military history and literature. Their knowledge of World War One is extensive, having spent over 35 years researching and leading tours to the battlefields and writing books about them. They have located, described and recorded some 1,000 memorials to our fighting services in mainland Europe and through their books have made the battlefields accessible to the general public.
In 1978 they pioneered the modern battlefield tour and founded the highly successful Major and Mrs Holt's Battlefield Tour Company. They later took over the running of the Royal British Legion Pilgrimage programme.
Their Battlefield Guides to the Somme, Ypres, Gallipoli, Normandy, Market-Garden, the WW1 Western Front – North and South are among the best-selling books to those areas, each known to local specialists as ‘The Bible’ . Their other works include Poets of the Great War, My Boy Jack? - the biography of Rudyard Kipling’s son, John - and In Search of the Better Ole, the biography of First World War Cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather, also published by Pen and Sword Books.
Further Reading
Major And Mrs Holt's Battlefield Guide To The Somme
(Paperback - 256 pages)by Major and Mrs Holt
Major and Mrs Holt's Battlefield Guide to the Somme is, without doubt, one of the bestselling guide books to the battlefields of the Somme. This latest up-dated edition, includes four recommended, timed itineraries representing one day's travelling. Every stop on route has an accompanying description and often a tale of heroic or tragic action. Memorials, private and official, sites of memorable conflict, the resting places of personalities of note are all drawn together with sympathetic… Read more...
Of further interest...

Bairnsfather, Bullets and Billets
Fri 13th DecemberBattlefield guide authors Major and Mrs Holt have begun a campaign for the nation to formally honour First World War cartoonist Captain Bruce Bairnsfather. Read article...

Operation Market Garden - 17 September 1944
Tue 17th SeptemberAn overview of Operation Market Garden by renowned battlefield guide authors Major and Mrs Holt, focusing on the first day of the operation Read article...

Bairnsfather's Christmas Truce, 1914
Mon 17th DecemberExtracted from In Search of the Better 'Ole by Tonie and Valmai Holt, a look at Bruce Bairnsfather's Christmas Truce, 1914 by Major and Mrs Holt. Read article...

Author talk: Richard Van Emden
Wed 6th AprilAs his latest work, The Somme, is released, we chatted to best-selling Great War author Richard Van Emden about his career, Harry Patch and the Somme centenary Read article...