Our other tour programmes...

ART, HISTORY & ARCHITECTURE TOURS
Holts Tours have launched a new Art, History and Architecture brochure. For tour details and to request a brochure visit here.

SCHOOL HISTORY & BATTLEFIELD TOURS
We also have an extensive programme of educational tours for schools. For more information click here.




To contact Holts Tours
Phone: 0845 375 0430
(00 44 1293 455 300
from outside the UK)

OPENING HOURS
Weekdays 9.00am - 5.00pm

info@holts.co.uk

Holts Tours
Aviation House, Crossoak Lane,
Redhill, Surrey
RH1 5EX.
United Kingdom

© Holts Tours

Holts 2008 brochure cover
Click here to request the 2008 brochure

 
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Holts History and Battlefield Tours - Our tour guides
We have a wide range of guides and historians, ensuring that on your tour you will benefit from their knowledge of the events,the people and the places, as they bring History to Life.

Occasionally an advertised lecturer may be obliged to cancel and we reserve the right to provide an alternative.

Group Captain Mike Clegg BA MIMgt had an RAF career largely associated with marine patrol operations. He first became interested in archaeology when he participated in an underwater survey of the Roman harbour of Sabrartha in Libya. Postings in Malta and Naples enabled him to visit many sites around the Mediterranean. He was a founder member of the Naples International Archaeological Society, undertaking lectures, tours and excavations. Mike has a First Class Honours Degree and a Diploma in Classical Studies awarded by the Open University. Mike is now a NADFAS lecturer, leading tours to many areas of the classical world and has been delighting Holts travellers for many years with his knowledge and enthusiastic communication.
Major Gordon Corrigan MBE was commissioned from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst in 1962 and was an officer of the Royal Gurkha Rifles before retiring from the Army in 1998. Having served around the world, his last appointment was CO of the Gurkha Centre in Hampshire. He is now a freelance military historian. His published books include Wellington, a Military Life; Mud, Blood and Poppycock - Britain and the First World War and Blood. Sweat and Arrogance, the Myths of Churchill's War, and he is the presenter of a number of television series, the latest of which was 'Mean Machines of War'. He is an honorary Research Fellow of the University of Birmingham, a Teaching Fellow at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, a Member of the British Commission for Military History and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Farriers.
Major Imogen Corrigan BA(Hons) served for twenty years with the Women’s Royal Army Corps and the Adjutant General’s Corps. She obtained a First Class Honours degree in Anglo Saxon and Medieval History from the University of Kent at Canterbury. Imogen has led a number of tours for Holts including a White Garment of Churches, Medieval Pilgrimage and the Age of Bede. Imogen is a NADFAS lecturer, specialising in medieval and religious history, and art.
John Grimwood joined the Royal Air Force age 16 and travelled round the World for 38 years as an Air Loadmaster and Helicopter Crewman. His interest in leading tours began by taking RAF Squadrons back to their Great War Airfields and history. John returned to his roots in Kent and joined Holts in 1999. Now working on a freelance basis he covers a variety of tours including WW1, WW2, Aviation and American Civil War. John and his wife Mary now live in the old Royal Marine School of Music barracks in Walmer. Mary had a career in Financial Services and a spell as Office manager for Holts. She now travels widely as a Tour manager.
Fred Hawthorne acquired his love of history listening to his grandmothers' tales of his colonial, revolutionary and civil war ancestors. After earning BA, BS and MA degrees in history, historical archaeology and education, he was licensed as a Federal Department of the Interior Battlefield Guide and for the past twenty-five years has guided thousands of individuals on both the climactic and the little known battlefields of the American Civil War. He served for thirteen years as resident of the Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides, Inc. - the oldest professional guide service in the United States. He continues to serve that organization in a variety of leadership roles. He has worked with Holts as their Gettysburg segment guide since 1990 and as the regular Civil War guide for Midas Tours since 2001. His insight, presentation and attention to tour detail is regularly praised by customers.
Professor Richard Holmes CBE TD JP is one of Britain’s leading military historians, President of the British Commission for Military History, Patron of the Guild of Battlefield Guides and President of the Battlefields Trust. Richard was for many years a member of the Department of War Studies at RMA Sandhurst before becoming Director of Cranfield University Security Studies Institute. He is the author of numerous best selling books, including Redcoat, Tommy and Sahib. His innovative series War Walks was the beginning of a great increase in television’s interest in military history. His is Colonel of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment (Queens and Royal Hampshires) and his recent book Dusty Warriors describes his 1st Battalion’s VC winning 2004 tour to Iraq. His latest book (2008) is ‘Marlborough: England’s fragile genius’. A portrait of John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough. Professor Holmes inimitable style and formidable knowledge have been enthralling our travellers for many years.
Lieutenant Colonel Howard Holroyd was commissioned from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in 1962 and served in the York and Lancashire Regiment and the Prince of Wales Own Regiment of Yorkshire. Thereafter he served in Germany, United Kingdom, Swaziland, Cyprus, Libya, Aden, Jamaica and Northern Ireland and was attached to the Malaysian Army serving with them in Indonesia, Thailand and Laos. In 1987 he took voluntary retirement and joined Holts Battlefield Tours, leading tours to North West Europe, USA, China and the Phillipines. In 1990 he joined P & O as Manager of Stockholders Affairs where he continued to lead military history tours.
Dr Michael Jones developed his love of military history at Bristol University and his interests range from the Middle Ages to the Second World War. He is the author of Bosworth 1485 – Psychology of a Battle, and a battlefield guide to Agincourt. Mike has taught history at Glasgow University and Winchester College and now works freelance as a writer and presenter. He has been guiding tours for over 20 years and his particular interest is in battlefield psychology – inspirational leadership, the nature of courage and what motivates men to fight against odds. His recent book on Stalingrad, using much new testimony from Red Army veterans has received critics praise and wide readership.
Simon Jones worked as a museum curator for 16 years, initially at the Royal Engineers museum before creating a new museum for the King’s Regiment in Liverpool. Blitz attracted half a million visitors. Now freelance, Simon has broadcast on the First World War which he teaches at Liverpool University. He has recently published a book on gas warfare and is writing on tunnelling and the story of ‘Sapper Dorothy Lawrence’. He has lectured in the USA on Native Americans in the Revolutionary era and is a member of the British Commission for Military History and the Centre for First World War Studies at the University of Birmingham.
Ian Knight is a leading authority on the history of the 19th century Zulu Kingdom. He has written more that 20 meticulously researched books on the subject and been involved in a number of TV documentaries. Ian has been visiting Zululand for more than 25 years, walking the battlefields and studying Zulu culture and tactics as well as all the actions of the Zulu War. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, an Honorary Research Associate of the Natal Museum and Vice President of the Anglo Zulu War Society.
Colonel Peter Knox OBE was commissioned from RMA Sandhurst into the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in 1968 and travelled widely during his thirty year career in the Army. A keen student of military history he has researched and conducted battlefield tours in Germany, France, the Peninsular and the Crimea. He aims to bring the battlefields alive, using personal accounts of those who fought there. He is a trustee of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers Museum and Chairman of the Crimean War Research Society.
John Lee is well known as a writer, lecturer and guide to the battlefields of the American Civil War, the Napoleonic Campaigns and in particular, the operational history of the First World War. He is a member of the British Commission for Military History, an Honorary Research Fellow of the Centre for First World War Studies at Birmingham University, a National Council Member of the Army records and a rank and file member of the Western Front Association and the Gallipoli Association. His study of General Sir Ian Hamilton was described as ‘a model of military biography. His most recent book is ‘The Warlords’ a study of Hindenburg and Ludendorff.
Michael Orr is a military historian who for many years taught in the War Studies Department at RMA Sandhurst and was a senior lecturer in the British Army’s Soviet (later Conflict) Studies Research Centre. He is preparing a study of command in the 55th (West Lancashire) Division in the First World War. He is Seccretary General of the British Commission for Military History and an experience and enthusiastic guide to the battlefields of the Western Front and the Second World War particularly Normandy and the Eastern Front.
Major Ian Passingham after 17 years in the Royal Hampshire Regiment and service with BRIXMIS during the Cold War, Major Ian Passingham left the Army to pursue a new career as a Defence Analyst and Historian. He has been associated with Holts since 1995. As a guide he specialises in WWI and WWII in North West Europe, Berlin in 1945 and the Cold War as well as the rise and fall of Nazism. Ian is the author of the critically acclaimed boo ‘Pillars of Fire’ which examines the Battle of Messines in June 1917 and ‘All the Kaisers Men; the life and death of the German Army on the Western Front 1914-1918’ He has also written and co-produced a 26 part TV series ‘Clash of Warriors’ for the History Channel.
Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Pugsley, D Phil is a Senior Lecturer Lecturer in War Studies at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He is an authority on the First World War, the Mediterranean Campaigns of the Second World War and an enthusiastic and entertaining battlefield guide. His publications include Gallipoli: the New Zealand Story, On the Fringe of Hell and the ANZAC Experience: New Zealand, Australian and Empire. Most recently, the magnificent volume of the History of the Royal Military Academy.
Nigel Steel is one of the leading authorities on the Gallipoli campaign. He is the author of a number of books including Battleground Europe:Gallipoli and co-author of Defeat at Gallipoli which has been available in Turkish for ten years. He appeared in the TV documentary WWI; Disaster at Gallipoli and a principal historic advisor on the Turkish feature length documentary ‘Gallipoli’. Nigel is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Centre for First World War Studies at Birmingham University. A member of the IWM Research Department, he is at present working at the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.