Today, 7th June marks the anniversary of the Battle of Messines Ridge… The Messines Ridge, situated a few thousand yards to the south of the town of Ypres, had been taken by the Germans in 1914 and they had fought tenaciously to keep it ever since. Strategically this ridge was hugely important; although at 260 [...]

Today I stumbled across a group called Gaia3D - they are a UK-based team of artists, developers and animators that are on a bit of a mission to shake up education by using gaming technology to provide interactive and immersive educational 3D experiences. One project of theirs which has captured my imagination is a WW1 virtual trench. The WW1 [...]

Earlier today I was invited on to the Mike Read radio show on BBC Radio Berkshire to talk about the First World War, tattoos, history books, charity cycle rides, Motorhead and Elvis Presley! As part of Mike’s ‘my favourite things’ session we discussed how my tattoo of soldiers going ‘over the top’ has inspired me [...]

In early 1915 the Western Front resembled a tag-team wrestling match. No sooner had the French had jumped out of the ring after the disaster at Champagne, they slapped the hand of the British who took up the baton for the Allies and launched their own offensive at Neuve Chapelle. The objective handed to the [...]

Earlier this week I read a great story in the Daily Mail about a recently found old suitcase that held a plethora of items relating to the life of a WW1 nurse. Margaret Maule was a nurse for 52 years, until she retired in 1969 aged 82. During that time, she cared for wounded WW1 [...]

On the back of my latest Kindle e-book (World War One: A Layman’s Guide) I thought it might be interesting to put together a short online questionnaire to test the nation’s knowledge of The First World War! So, get your clever face on and help us get a better understanding about the nation’s general knowledge [...]

Following on from the huge success of the recent The Great War 100 Slideshare presentation which has had over 60,000 views in a week, I have put together another Slideshare deck, this time giving a sneak preview of some of the chapters that are in my Kindle book, World War One: A Layman’s Guide. The [...]

Today we have issued a small update  to our popular “The Great War 100″ app  consisting of 7 new infographics covering the rifles used by the infantrymen of the main protagonists of the First World War; (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the USA). Each graphic includes a nice image along with the vital [...]

I know what you are thinking: Not another book on the First World War!! To a certain extent, I do sympathise with you. If you type in ‘WW1′ in the books section of Amazon.co.uk you will be confronted with a list of 11,186 books to choose from. That is quite a bookcase. So, do we [...]

I write this particular blog post from a hotel room somewhere in central Stockholm. It has been a long but memorable day… I have been hosting a number of business partners at the Imperial War Museum. To be honest the whole event was a bit of an indulgence to my own taste, it could have [...]