which of you pals are tour guides?

[trenchwalker]

i know paul reed is a battlefield guide and a very good one at that.

but i would like to know how you got in the job in the first place and what path i should take in which to become a guide like yourselfs.

[garyem1]

Tom Morgan is a Battle Field Guide.

Sorry to snitch on you Tom

gary

[Christina Holstein]

I guide at Verdun/Argonne/St. Mihiel Salient on an ad hoc basis, mostly one-to-one or small groups although I also do specialist tours for Flanders Tours. People find me by word or mouth. Haven't got to a website yet. I'd need a little place in verdun before I do that because driving back and forth gets tiring. I haven't gone for the Guild of Battlefield Guides yet either because I do so little guiding at the moment that it doesn't seem worth it.

Christina Holstein

[AOK4]

I also do tours occasionally in the Ypres region.

[Chris_Baker]

Along with Terry Reeves, I usually guide the Heart of England WFA Branch tours. Over the years we have visited Ypres salient (twice), the Somme 1916 (twice) and 1918, Mons to the Marne, Arras, Cambrai, Aubers and Loos, Aisne and Chemin des Dames, Nieuwpoort and the Yser, Saint-Quentin, and probably some I've forgotten. I know most of the British parts of the front very well - better in fact that most of England. And I know what happened there, and in many areas I know it in great detail. But I wouldn't call myself a tour guide. To me, that implies someone who does it for a living, whether on a part time or full time basis.

As far as becoming a good tour guide is concerned, I would suggest that you work hard to build up a personal reputation. That, surely is what Paul did. He is known first and foremost as an enthusiast and expert on the subject. That is why people would want to pay hard-earned money to be guided by him. The same is true of Richard Holmes, for example. People will require his services as a guide because of the subject-matter knowledge and ability to portray it.

I see quite a few tours advertising so-called 'expert guides'. And I often say to myself - "who is he, then, never heard of him" - which may be an indicator of my ignorance, or of the fact that the individual is not known in the market or in Great War circles as an expert. It's all down to reputation.

In some ways it is not dissimilar to what I do for a living, which is being a management consultant. I get business because of reputation; and the easiest business going is when people come back for more.

So...read those books, give those talks, write some stuff, and build up a reputation that you are serious, know your stuff, and can put it across to others. This is not an overnight thing. It takes years.

[AndyHollinger]

I am not a guide, although I have been a customer of Tom's and found his help invaluable and delightful.

I am on the board of my university's Alumni College which has many educational travel programs and uses "guides" and experts.

A couple of thoughts:

A good guide is someone who adds texture and background to the client's experience. He/She is a diplomat, an expert, a project manager, and above all else - one who enhances experience.

To some this might mean a "day by day" minute by minute explanation of part or all of the battle. A military detail person who can literally withstand the client's desire to match trivia contests and let the client know exactly what happened, where - or at least discuss it with them. To many this would be a great guide.

To some a good guide can distill the experience of a particular place in whatever time the client has to spend there. This guide must be able to balance the Client Husband (for instance) desire to know and feel the military aspects as well as keep the Client Wife from getting too bored and stay involved ... and do a 3 year battle in a day and a half and keep it within a price affordable by the client. This guide probably doesn't know where the Machine Gun emplacements were on the second day of the attack. But can get you to the right places during a day and a half to "feel" the battle field.

As a boy, I visited Gettysburg and in those days, old men stood about the visitor's center with Blue Caps stating they were guides. Riding in your car, they gave the narrative of the battle and, at least to me - a wide eyed 10 year old - made it real beyond the monuments. This man brought me to the foot of Lee's Statue and had me look over to Meade's ... and then he waited while I walked there and back - with my Dad ... and retraced the route apon which my grandfather's three brothers died (or so family legend said) ... he took us to Little Round Top and Culp's hill ... To me, he seemed old enough to be there at the time ...

Battlefield guides don't mean being all things to all people ... but advertising what you are and in so doing, keeping your clients are happy ... or adapting your approach to keep the audience "with you."

Perhaps this is all stuff already known - if so - I apologize. It's just that these people are the link between our books and interests and the reality of internalizing history today and are, thus, very important.

[Paul Reed]

So...read those books, give those talks, write some stuff, and build up a reputation that you are serious, know your stuff, and can put it across to others. This is not an overnight thing. It takes years.

That's it in a nutshell. I get asked all the time 'how can I get your job?', 'what must I do to be a guide?'. People want it all to happen so fast - but that isn't possible. A few training sessions or membership of a guild is a starting point, but it is not the whole story. People see you when you are successful, and want to emmulate you - but they never see the hundreds of hours of free work you've done, years of poverty, years of study and research etc etc that is (sadly?) necessary to build up some form of reputation. It takes time. Those who do not take that time might make a fast buck, but they will not last the duration.

Any potential guide should continue with their own interests first and foremost. Research a local unit. Follow the course of a particular battle or engagement. Read memoirs, not modern books. Use maps when in the field, with the intention of knowing the ground so that you never need to look at a map. Give talks to local groups or your local WFA, and offer to guide a few groups for free - even if it is just friends. None of this takes five minutes, I'm afraid - but even in my limited time I have seen a few 'stars' who have done just this and they are now very successful at what they do in this field.

It takes dedication - at the end of the day, when you are guiding hundreds/thousands of people a year, only one thing will keep you going - a dedication to the memory of the men who fought. Without that, without a conception that the 'torch' (as described by John McCrae) is passing, and passing to us, you will just be another guide... you will not be able to 'swear by the slain of the war that you will never forget'. If you cannot do that then don't be a Battlefield Guide - lose sight of it, and it is only just money. And there are easier ways to earn a crust.

[trenchwalker]

cheers all

I have been intrested in the great war half of my life and intend on doing it for some years to come.

since the age of eight when i found my gt grandad bayonet in a shed to the first time i stood on hawthorne ridge and thought my gtgt uncle was here and still lays here.