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SELF-DRIVE TOUR FAQs
About James Power

My wife Annette and I
(left of photo) with a typical tour group
I first visited the Somme and Ypres battlefields back in
1966 when I
was just eighteen. I was returning from a holiday in France, and by chance found
myself to be driving through somewhere called Picardy and the Somme.
I
remember stopping to see a truly massive memorial which dominated the
skyline - the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing on the Somme battlefield. I
was taken aback that the 73,000* plus names on the memorial were not all
those British soldiers killed in the battle (as shocking as that would have
been...) but ‘just’ those soldiers who were either never found or
identified. I found this figure difficult to comprehend, especially as this
figure got worse the more I learnt about what happened here. I could not
help thinking that I was the same age (at that time) as so many of those
names who were staring at me from the memorial walls.
As my then knowledge of the Great War was fairly sketchy
I found difficulty, like so many casual visitors to the battlefield today,
in transforming the landscape in my minds eye back to how it must have
looked in 1916. I wanted to know exactly where the front line trenches were,
and where exactly the many individual actions took place. More than anything
I felt a need to understand what it must have been like for those who were
there. What was the reality of trench warfare?
My ‘journey’ in answering these, and many other
questions, has captivated my interest ever since that first visit. I must
stress that I have never been one to collect military memorabilia, or have
any great interest in the tactical aspects of warfare or militarism. My
interest is solely from a social / humanitarian perspective, and the
consequences of warfare, coupled with a perhaps somewhat naïve belief that
understanding humankind's potential to indulge in such conflicts is perhaps
one way of preventing a repetition.
The more I learnt about what these men endured, the more
I thought that if I had been there, I would (at the very least) have hoped
that future generations would take just one day or so out of their lives to
try to understand what I, and countless others were experiencing. I doubt if
I would have been one of those whose bravery would be remembered. Most
likely I would have been just a typical nineteen year old from a town or
village somewhere “back home”, almost paralysed with fear, a fear that would
most likely come to an end on the hell they called the ‘Western Front’.
Since that first visit I have pursued a career in the
police service (Superintendent, Dorset Police) as well as raising a family.
Throughout this time my interest in the First World War, and the Somme,
Ypres and Verdun Battles in particular, has continued. Over the past forty
odd years I have returned to the battlefields countless times. I have also
undertaken numerous private conducted tours to both the Somme, Ypres and
Verdun battlefields whilst serving as a police officer, a background which
served me well when I decided to establish my company after I retired in
1996.
I took the
plunge and formed Somme Battlefield Tours Ltd, more as a way of sharing my
interest with others as opposed to running the venture as a hard-nosed
commercial business. For this reason I personally organised and accompanied all
the many, many conducted tours I have undertaken since starting our small
company back in 1996 (now also with my wife Annette who switched career and
joined me in 2004). Annette and I have, however, always avoided the temptation to expand what
we do beyond
the reach and scope of our personal involvement. This way you deal with us
personally and not an employee!
In 2009 we decided to focus all our energies to providing
self-drive tours to the Somme and Ypres battlefields, based on our many
years experience of taking small groups. Over the years we had seen so
many people trying to find their war around the battlefields, then one day
we though 'why not commit our tried and tested conducted tours to paper'
- and it worked. It worked very well indeed (as you may have seen from
the letters we have received). Our much-praised
self-drive tours are now extremely popular for the reasons we've outlined on
the appropriate page of our website (and
see the testimonials we've received).
Organising our tours is very much a labour of love with
each conducted or self-drive tour taking on a character of its own. Without exception,
everyone Annette and I have met has been good company and all have found the visiting
the Somme, Ypres battlefields a most moving, interesting and
rewarding experience.
Well I think that’s just about enough waffle about me.
Once again, thank you very much for
visiting this web site.
Any comments or suggestions would be most
welcome.
James Power
A member of the
Guild of Battlefield Guides


*
The casual visitor to the Thiepval Memorial could be forgiven for believing
that the Memorial records all those soldiers whose bodies were never found
(or found and not capable of being identified or buried and burial location
subsequently lost) on the Somme battlefield.
This is not the case, for it records only the British and South African
‘missing’.
Visitors should be mindful that:
The memorial does not include all those Australian,
New Zealand, Canadian and Indian soldiers who fought on the Somme
battlefield and whose bodies were never found or identified, for they
are recorded on separate memorials (Villers Bretonneux for Australians,
Vimy Ridge for Canadians and Neuve Chapelle for Indian soldiers).
The memorial does not include the tens of thousands of French
soldiers who died on the Somme battlefield during the time that they
‘held the line’ here from the start of the Great War up to the Autumn of
1915.
Furthermore, the Thiepval memorial does not include a further 14,600 + British soldiers who
were similarly ‘lost’ and never found when the German Army swept across the
Somme battlefield in the Spring of 1918 (...and swept back in the August of
1918 leading to the eventual defeat of the German Army). The battlefield
visitor needs to drive another mile or so east of Thiepval to the village of
Pozieres to see the names of these soldiers commemorated at the Pozieres
Military Cemetery (on the main D929 Albert-Bapaume road approx 1/4 mile
south of Pozieres). |