Ian is the CEO and founder of In The Footsteps as well as being a full-time professional battlefield historian and guide. He is an accredited (badged) member of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides, a member of the Society for Army Historical Research (SAHR), Western Front Association and Last Post Association and a registered tour guide with the European Tour Operators Association.

Ian was the winner of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides 'Will Townend' Award, which is voted upon by the Guild's membership and presented retrospectively in recognition of the contribution made by a member over the preceding year. As a guiding member of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides Ian endeavours to maintain the high levels of good practice and standard of service commensurate with the Guild's ethos.

"Battlefield tours are my passion, they are what I love to do and I feel extremely privileged to be able to take people to the battlefields of Northwest Europe "following in the footsteps" of an ancestor or relative on a genealogy tour, retracing the steps of a military unit or formation and guiding them around some of the most important historical sites that have shaped the world in which we live on an In The Footsteps tailor-made tour."

Ian has served in the British Armed Forces with the Army Reserve for over thirty years. He had the privilege of commanding B (Rorke's Drift) Company of the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Wales (24th/41st Foot) as well as being the Training Major for Wales University Officer Training Corps. In the latter years of his military career Ian served as a Staff Officer in a variety of roles in 160th Infantry Brigade and Headquarters Wales. Ian now holds the post of Deputy Colonel Cadet in Wales. The experience he has gained with the British Army allows him to add a soldier's perspective in his guiding profession.

For the five years of the Centenary of the First World War Ian was the Staff Officer responsible for overseeing the military contribution to the commemoration for Wales. In this role he worked closely with the Welsh Government in the deliverance of their overseas and home based commemorations including the 2017 Commemoration at the Welsh Memorial near Langemarck where he was introduced to Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales.

Ian meeting HRH Price Charles, as the Staff Officer responsible for the military contribution to the First World War Commemorations for Wales.

Ian has led tours for over fifteen years and visited the battlefields at: Ypres, Waterloo, the D-Day Beaches of Normandy, Passchendaele, the Somme, Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift in South Africa, US Airborne sites of Operation Market Garden, Sicily and the Italian Campaign of WW2, the British Airborne at Arnhem, US Airborne and British Airborne sites of Normandy, Vimy Ridge, Messines Ridge, Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge, Crecy and Agincout, Cambrai, the British and American Rhine Crossing sites, Verdun, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kursk and Moscow in Russia ... and many more.



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Page last updated: 16 July 2021.