The majority of our tours are bespoke, i.e. we develop them on request around an individual soldier’s story. John started many years ago researching our own grandfathers and their roll in the two world wars. We quickly realised how important it was not just for us but for friends and acquaintances who asked us to do the same for them.

When we moved here in 2012 we started to do the same for guests staying in our bed and breakfast. It is one thing to learn the facts and figures of the Great War but it is another altogether to see how it directly touched your family.

Bespoke tours aim to put you as close as possible to the footprints of the soldier who you are researching. It is about discovering how they lived not just where they are buried, after all the vast majority survived. In the course of time we have visited not just muddy fields where trenches once criss-crossed the landscape but also a former abbey that served as a dressing station, unchanged chapels and churches where soldiers were known to have worshiped, railway stations, woodland, tunnels and underground shelters.

This part of our “job” has taken us to places that we never would have discovered any other way. We have found local people unfailingly generous with their time and knowledge as they open up old barns and ancient buildings and invite our guests to touch history.  They have not forgotten here.

If you are interested in learning more email your relative’s details to frajohn@mac.com and John will see what information is available and make a suggestion for you.