One of the questions I am frequently asked is how did you get into battlefield guiding? It is a story, as they say, “that you will tell your grandchildren and mightily bored they will be too” but here goes anyway.

During the 1960’s my father, a Second World War serviceman stood by my mother (actually I think he was outside the room as my mother called him all the names under the sun) and I came into the world. I was their third and final child, one I think, Dad maybe hoped, would be a boy. I duly arrived, a pink, wet, crinkled thing screaming and kicking my way into the world and, although he would never tell you, Dad was slightly disappointed that my mother had produced a third girl. They had the name for a boy, Joseph. That name was hastily transformed into Joanne and then shortened throughout my life to Jo.

Childhood memories are interspersed with frequent Saturday afternoons watching war films with my dad and constantly interrupting his viewing with the question “tell me a bit more of what you did in the war Dad”. Likewise, my mum endured a constant barrage of “what was it like to live through the blitz”. “A strange child” my father said as most of my reading and interest took hold in military history books. I don’t think he ever really understood my fascination with military history.

Zoom forward to my 18th year which saw me boarding an RAF plane heading towards Hong Kong where I would work at Headquarters British Forces with an office overlooking Hong Kong harbour for the next four years. One of my duties was to signpost relatives of fallen Second World War servicemen who had died whilst serving in Hong Kong. The bonus was the library which held a wealth of military history books to read on the beach when not working and Hong Kong island still had remnants from early colonialism and then the Second World War. What more could I possibly want?

A return back to Blighty and suddenly I found myself (having been four years out of any social loop in the UK) wondering what to do with my spare time. The camaraderie that had been such a large part of my life working in a big headquarters in Hong Kong was a distant memory and the friends I had made, being military, were dispersed across the globe.
Time to try something new, something that would enable me to mix with like-minded people, give me a social life and a new challenge. The Territorial Army (TA) and the Royal Signals beckoned. I suddenly found myself in a whirl wind of learning about HF and VHF frequencies, adventure training and a whole new raft of friendships, some of which are friends to this day. More importantly it allowed me to research and plan battlefield tours.

Skip forward to 1994 and a war of sorts had been raging in Bosnia. December 1994 and the parameters had changed whereby the British Army moved from a peacekeeping stance to NATO. The rules of engagement had changed and suddenly TA soldiers were called upon to volunteer for tours of duty, something which the TA, now the Reserves, have been doing ever since.

I volunteered (“don’t ever volunteer” they say in the Army – so I did just that!) For me, this was a chance to put into practice all I had learnt and to do something entirely different from a hum drum boring job and yes, a chance of adventure (now this resonates with reasons, amongst others, for young men enlisting in 1914). Christmas time and a deployment to Bosnia allowed me to understand the vagaries of being on an operational tour and to glean an insight (however small) into what soldiers in both world wars went through. The joy and misery of getting, or not getting, as the case may be, a precious letter was something I remember well. Long hours on stag (guard duty) in the cold or into the early hours of the dawn when your eyelids refused to stay open. Living in difficult conditions, on army rations with no fresh rations, latrine duties, yes, I did those as well, endlessly boring hours where the highlight of the day was changing frequencies at midnight were all par for the course. Daily route checking to see if roads had been cleared of mines and were still accessible so that the OC could visit the sites his Squadron were working at or to provide transport for the Padre in doing his godly ministering as well as being at the beck and call of various liaison officers became routine.

I remember frequently chatting with the local children and interpreters and trying to understand the nuances of this war that had ravaged this beautiful country and the sadness at how it had divided friends, neighbours and even families. Hearts and minds was a big thing in the military.

Music was always in the background, the songs at the time that were played while on tour, today, still take me straight back to Bosnia 1994 when I hear them. Tommy Atkins’ It’s a Long Way to Tipperary was my “Don’t Look Back in Anger.”

Then there was a smell in Bosnia like no other and, again, as I write this today, I know if I ever smelt that same smell I would be transported straight back to the battlefield. Today, when I am guiding, I try to correlate all those thoughts I had back then. Why? Because actually they are not a lot different to what soldiers over a hundred years ago thought and felt.

I came home safe and sound. For me this was the most difficult part of the whole tour. I had been picked up and projected for seven months into a world so different from my everyday modern and somewhat selfish lifestyle and thrown into a world where water was precious, brother had fought against brother and fear had been the ruler for many of the people in Bosnia. It took a while for me to stop being angry at some of things I experienced and to come to terms with the tragedy of working in a country that had, been ravaged by war. Even the TA, for a while, held no interest to me.

Life goes on though and once I had realised that my anger, my frustration, and my difficulty in readjusting was my problem I accepted gradually that time, as they say, is a great healer.

I transferred TA squadrons a lot in those days. I lived in Bath, London and then onto Germany. Each different place bought a different TA unit and the chance to arrange a different battlefield tour. At that stage I always used the same tour operator. That particular tour operator eventually realised I was heading off to Germany for four years and suddenly battlefield guiding started to open up for me.

This was mid to late nineties by now (it feels likes only yesterday, yet it really is nearly twenty years ago) and many military groups, based in Germany, wanted to tour battlefields nearby. Suddenly on my doorstep was Arnhem. The tour company I was working for at the time saw this as an opportunity to have a guide based in Germany and thus lower their costs and for me it was an opportunity to learn a different battlefield and gain experience. Arnhem though, is a difficult one, it is niche, it is very heavy on the paras and less so on the ground troops and infantry. More importantly it is a difficult one to guide as a female guide. Something I can’t quite put my finger on and still to this day is difficult to sum up. Suddenly I was confronted military groups who, quite rightly so, were very immersed in their history. To some firstly, I was just a female and secondly what did I know about their battle? Well, actually quite a lot, and ultimately far more than they did as I proved time and again by quietly delivering the history I know so well.

Germany over with and time to return to the UK. My first house, a house of my own but still the yearning to be out battlefield guiding was strong. Luckily for me, and I am fully aware this is not for everyone, I had joined the Guild of Battlefield Guides. As such I started to get recommendations to work with several other tour operators. A very happy three years with a schools tour operator evolved from a recommendation as did a recommendation to work with Australians. Could I do an Australian centric tour. Yes, I could, I had already toured out in Gallipoli and so began a very happy relationship with Australia and their history on the Western Front and Gallipoli. That relationship, barring Covid, is still going strong today and I am still, or hope to be, leading Australian tours. I am also still a firm believer in educating the younger generation in the work I do with school groups both here in the UK and on the Western Front. After all, they are our future battlefield guides and military historians.

The Centenary of the First World War proved somewhat of a feeding frenzy for anybody who could guide groups covering the First World War battlefields. I was beginning to be recognised in my own right as a sought-after guide. I made friends with other guides, not only within the companies I worked for but also with the companies and guides who regularly crossed my path on the battlefields. Many of them are still my friends and have provided comfort and solidarity during the last two turbulent years.

By January 2020 my diary was full. Thirty confirmed tours and life was good. Then Covid hit.

I took out one tour in 2020. It was a happy tour. Life for me personally was looking good. Little did I know it would be my last tour for twenty-two months. Therefore, when Covid hit my world, like many others suddenly came crashing down around my ears. Surely this can’t last long was the question everyone asked? I remember putting something out on social media, something along the lines that this would be long and protracted. Some didn’t agree with me and to be fair had I, myself, known how long and protracted it was going to be I have no idea what I would have done.

As a guide I rely on my guiding income, there was no pension, nor was there a partner at the time that shared my life and thus helped pay the bills. A mortgage holiday and a subsidy from the Government were a god send but still not enough to keep the wolf from the door. With no alternative I applied to vaccinate the population and got the job. It kept the wolf from the door without a doubt but the frustration at not being able to do the job I loved was insurmountable. At the same time many were thinking of alternative ways to keep their profile current and to provide some sort of gateway for the public to access the battlefields we could no longer access. Along came virtual talks, powerpoint presentations, podcasts, virtual battlefield tours and even a bit of television work. To those who had the foresight to build upon these avenues I take my hat off – I don’t think they will ever realise that they provided a focus for many guides, something to work towards and, for some, a slight income.
Covid has been dire, it has been desperate and for many of us it has played on our mental health. The sheer frustration and worry has been something I never want to experience again. However, there were a few in the battlefield guiding fraternity who supported each other without any other motive than just giving mutual support. My main supporters and sources of comfort were those who I predominantly worked with and whose paths crossed mine on the battlefield pre-Covid but there are others who, during the last two years have provided support. I don’t wish to mention them here but I hope they know who they are.

And so we struggled against opened borders, closed borders, refusal on flights because the regulations had suddenly changed between setting off for the airport and boarding the plane, through to a Covid diagnosis just before boarding the plane. One minute the borders were open and the sun shone on all of us and the next minute they closed again and dark clouds descended.

And now 2022 – my thoughts. There is a quiet confidence in the air. I have taken my first successful tour of the year, a bespoke tour. I have enough lined up to keep me going until year end (well sort of). I feel there is a tentative confidence in the travel industry, an industry that has, I believe been largely forgotten and not supported. There is also an upsurge in the appetite to travel, may be not from the far-flung distant shores just yet but certainly people seem to want to get away and be guided around the battlefields. I saw a good friend just recently from one of the hotels we use frequently in Ypres and I didn’t realise how overcome with emotion I would feel at being reunited with her. My mug is still in their dining hall awaiting my return. The small room at the top of the hotel which is always allocated to me is still there awaiting my return.

For me, I suppose I just want to get back out there. I want to impart my knowledge. I want to have the privilege to take passengers to a grave where, possibly, they are the first to have ever visited that particular headstone. I want to have that sheer joy of coming in off a tour and feeling utter job satisfaction, I want to have the sheer joy of meeting up with battlefield guiding friends and chewing the fat over a day’s work. Predominantly though I desperately want to get back to pass my knowledge onto others. Because in doing so I hope I will have played a small part in maintaining the legacy of those that went before us and in a small way ensuring that their sacrifice, history, call it what you will, is never forgotten.