Our Speakers & Chairs A-Z

Kate Adie grew up in Sunderland, and joined BBC Radio Durham after leaving Newcastle University where she read Swedish. As BBC Chief News Correspondent from 1989 to 2003 she covered major stories, including both Gulf Wars, the SAS storming of the Iranian Embassy, and the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. She lives in Dorset and presents Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent.

Kate Andrew's latest project is the restoration of Worcester Cathedral. The project involves managing the cathedral masons and service teams, day to day maintenance and capital projects across the nearly six acre site encompassing numerous listed buildings and several scheduled ancient monuments in addition to the Cathedral itself.

Peter Apps is global affairs commentator at Reuters, a British Army reservist and executive director of pop-up think tank the Project for Study of the 21st Century (PS21). Peter has reported from across the world as Reuters political risk and global defence correspondent, and was appointed a columnist in 2016. He undertook reserve military training with both the British and U.S. armies and more recently as a UK specialist army reservist, providing advice, analysis and training and serving two full-time tours of duty during the Covid-19 pandemic and Ukraine war.

He is the author of two successful Kindle Singles, Before Ebola and Churchill in the Trenches.

Stephanie Baker is an award-winning journalist and Senior Writer at Bloomberg. She began her reporting career in Moscow during the 1990s, reporting on the economic transformation of Russia for Bloomberg, The Moscow Times, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Since 2018 she has chronicled the rise and fall of Russian billionaires and written extensively about sanctions placed on Russia. She has also been covering the fallout out from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine since February 2022. Stephanie has appeared on BBC TV and Radio, Bloomberg Television, NPR and PBS.

Patrick Baty was a former officer in both the regular Army and also in the Artists Rifles. He has since become the archivist and historian of the latter.  He has an artistic background. Two great grandparents were the artists Robert Bevan and Stanisława de Karłowska and he has researched the circles in which they moved and assisted in exhibitions of their works.

Since leaving the Army he has pursued a career in the decoration of historic buildings. His work covers research, paint analysis, colour & technical advice. Projects have ranged from King Henry VIII’s heraldic Beasts and London social housing estates to major structures such as Tower Bridge and Stowe House. 

Patrick is a Fellow of both the Societies of Antiquaries of London and also of Scotland.

Paul Beaver is a leading aviation historian, broadcaster and author, as well as an historic airplane pilot who has been flying the Spitfire since 2011. He has written more than forty books including Spitfire People, Spitfire Evolution and Winkle: The Extraordinary Life of Britain’s Greatest Pilot. As well as being an author, Paul has been a television war reporter, journalist with Jane’s, a parliamentary advisor and served twenty-seven years in the Territorial Army, rising to the rank of Colonel in the Army Air Corps. He lives near Andover.

A former regular officer in the British Army, Antony Beevor served in Germany during the Cold War. His books include Stalingrad, Berlin, D-Day, The Battle for Spain and the Second World War. His work, which has received major prizes, has appeared in thirty-seven languages and sold more than nine million copies. His latest book is Russia – Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, and a former chair of the Society of Authors, he has received honorary doctorates and fellowships from five universities. In 2014, he received the Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Literature, and in 2016 the Historical Association’s Norton Medlicott Medal for services to history. He was knighted in 2017.

Ash Bhardwaj is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and keynote

speaker, whose work explores the intersection of travel, current affairs

and human behaviour. He has reported from around the world for outlets

including the BBC, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times and Condé Nast

Traveller.

Before travel writing, Ash was a ski instructor, science teacher and

wannabe cowboy. He is an officer in the British Army Reserve, and a

lecturer in travel journalism at City, University of London. Why We

Travel is his first book.

Tim Bouverie is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain Churchill and the Road to War, shortlisted for the Orwell Prize. He studied history at Christ Church Oxford and was the 2020-21 Alistair Horne Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford.

Dr Patrick Bury is a Reader (Senior Associate Professor) in Security at the University of Bath, specialising in warfare and counter-terrorism. He has over 20 years’ experience of working in the security sector as a practitioner, analyst and academic. A former British army Captain and NATO analyst, he has appeared regularly on multiple major global media outlets. He is the author of Callsign Hades, a memoir of his platoon's 2008 tour of Sangin, described as 'the first great book of the Afghan war'.

Damian Collins is the Festival Director of the Fleet Street Festival of Words. He is the author of Rivals in the Storm, how Lloyd George seized power, won the war and lost his government, which was published in 2024, and Charmed Life, The Phenomenal World of Philip Sassoon, published in 2016. Damian has also contributed chapters on Lloyd George, Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward VIII for Iain Dale’s books, The Prime Ministers, The Presidents and King’s and Queen’s. Damian writes on politics and technology for the New European, and has also previously written for The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and The New York Times.

Damian is a former UK government Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy, was Chair of the House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee, and Member of Parliament for Folkestone and Hythe from 2010 to 2024. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at the Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, Montreal.

Simon Davies is the CEO of Spectra Group (UK) Ltd, a firm specialising in providing mission-critical communications systems to governments, military forces, and private companies. Davies has a background in the British Army's Royal Signals and served for 24 years, including a stint in the UK Special Forces. Upon retiring from the army in 2004, he established Spectra Group, which has become a trusted provider of communications products and services in challenging environments. Davies has been acknowledged for his contributions, being named Battlespace Magazine's "Businessperson of the Year" in 2017 and receiving the Queen's Award for Innovation in 2019 for Spectra's tactical communications product, SlingShot.

During his 40 years as a British soldier, Major General Denaro commanded his Regiment in the war to liberate Kuwait and was Chief of Staff of some 44,000 multinational troops during the Balkans conflict. He then became Commandant of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for 3 years.  For 6 years until his retirement in Mar 2003, he was the Middle East adviser to the UK Secretary of State for Defence.

He became an OBE after the Gulf War in 1991 and a CBE following his time in the Former Yugoslavia in 1995. He was a trustee and a council member of the Princes’ Trust 2000-2008, and an adviser to the Crown Prince of Bahrain 2003-07. He became a senior adviser to the court of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and other governments in the Gulf Region.  He formed an Advisory Board to the UK MoD on Middle East issues, which lasted until 2020, and he now works with Forward Thinking, a non-governmental organisation that works in the UK and the Gulf-MENA region to resolve conflict through inclusive dialogue.

Major General Denaro is an Extra Equerry to His Majesty the King and a retired Deputy Lieutenant for Herefordshire.

Clive Dickinson is an author whose work ranges from royal biographies to publications for cultural and scientific organizations: the Royal Geographical Society, The Met Office, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Imperial War Museum, the National Trust and English Heritage.

He has written best-sellers for well-known British stars of stage and screen, is an editorial consultant for Oxford University Press and pursued his academic interests as the compiler of anthologies and commentaries on the Romantic poets, as well as an introduction to English poetry in general for new readers.

He graduated from Oxford University with a degree in English and presently divides his work between Herefordshire-based studies and screenwriting in the USA.

Dr Tessa Dunlop is an award-winning broadcaster, historian, and author. Her previous books include Sunday Times best-selling The Century Girls, The Bletchley Girls, Army Girls, and Elizabeth and Philip. Tessa has featured in numerous historical and royal documentaries on the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5 and is co-host of the new Global podcast Where Politics Meets History.

Lucy Easthope is the UK's leading authority on recovering from disaster. She has been an advisor for nearly every major disaster of the past two decades, including the 2004 tsunami, 9/11, the Salisbury poisonings, Grenfell, the Covid-19 pandemic and most recently the war in Ukraine. She challenges others to think differently about what comes next after tragic events, and how to plan for future ones. Lucy grew up in Liverpool and has a degree in law, a PhD in medicine and a Masters in risk, crisis and disaster management. She is a Professor in Practice of Risk and Hazard at the University of Durham, a Fellow in Mass Fatalities and Pandemics at the University of Bath and a Research Associate at the Joint Centre for Disaster Research, Massey University NZ.

Daniel Finkelstein is a British journalist and opinion writer. A former executive editor of The Times, he continues to write for the paper. He has been Political Columnist of the Year four times and recently joined the board of Chelsea Football Club. He was appointed to the House of Lords in 2013.

Angharad Hampshire is an academic and journalist. She has worked as a radio producer for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service in London, honorary lecturer in journalism at the University of Hong Kong and regular contributor to the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. She has a Doctor of Arts in creative writing from the University of Sydney. Angharad is a lecturer in creative writing at York St John University and lives in York with her family. Her debut novel The Mare was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2025.

Charles Hecker is the author of the 2024 book Zero Sum: The Arc of International Business in Russia, published in the UK by Hurst Publishers and in the US by Oxford University Press.

Prior to writing Zero Sum, Charles was a partner at Control Risks, the international, specialist risk consultancy. For eight years, Charles was the managing partner of the firm’s Moscow office. He was later a co-head of Control Risks’ geopolitical risk consulting practice.

Prior to working at Control Risks, Charles was a journalist in Russia for The Moscow Times and in Florida for The Miami Herald. Charles has a BA in Russian and Soviet Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA from the Russian Research Center (now the Davis Center) at Harvard University.

Wendy Holden was a respected journalist and war correspondent for the Daily Telegraph. She is the author of more than thirty-five non-fiction titles and three novels featuring remarkable men and women, many of which are international bestsellers and several of which have been adapted for film, TV, and radio. Her books include Born Survivors, the bestselling story of three mothers who hid their pregnancies from the Nazis, now published in twenty-four countries, and the No.1 bestseller Tomorrow Will Be A Good Day, the memoir of Captain Sir Tom Moore.

Conn Iggulden is one of the most successful authors of historical fiction writing today. A former English teacher and a passionate advocate for the power of stories, Conn has written bestselling series on Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan and the Wars of the Roses, as well as two stand-alone novels: Dunstan, set in the red-blooded world of tenth-century England, and The Falcon of Sparta, in which he returned to the Ancient World. Both instalments of his Athenian series, The Gates of Athens and Protector, and his recent Golden Age series, Lion and Empire, are Sunday Times bestsellers. He has been described as ‘one of our finest historical novelists’ by the Daily Express.

Bill Jackson is a member of the College of Healing, practicing for over 50 years using crystals created by Buddhist monks under meditation. Also practices distance healing. Mind, Body, Spirit Wellbeing and Energy Healing. Lectures and give talks worldwide and has an international energy healing practice using traditional healing for contemporary times. Engaged in environmental organisations, including the early stages of Green Peace protecting the whales and involved in the Herefordshire & Radnorshire Nature Trust from the early 1960s to a lifetime membership of the Wildlife Trust. Awarded life membership of the Marine Conservation Society. Bill is the Commissioning Editor of 3 books: A Thousand Years of High Sheriffs in Herefordshire Mortimer Landscape of North Herefordshire, with a third book to be published shortly.

Larry Lamb is a well-known British actor and presenter with a career spanning several decades, best recognised for his acting roles in the BBC soap opera EastEnders and the sitcom Gavin & Stacey.

Larry writes his own poetry as well as performing other works by well known poets.

As a broadcaster, Caroline Lang began her career in BBC Local Radio before moving to BBC Radio 2 as a Current Affairs Researcher on the Jimmy Young Show and then BBC Radio 4 as a Producer on the nightly Arts programme ‘Kaleidoscope’. Caroline then joined BFBS, the British Forces Broadcasting Service, where as a TV and Radio reporter her assignments ranged from behind the scenes stories with the British troops serving in Bosnia and Croatia during the Balkans War, to time in Northern Ireland covering the end of the Troubles and the Good Friday Agreement. On BFBS TV, as well as anchoring the Forces news programme, Caroline hosted a TV interview programme, ‘Caroline and Company’, with forces related celebrities including Sir Denis Healey, Sir Peter de la Billière, Kate Adie, John Nichol, Andy McNabb and Martin Bell.

Damien Lewis has established himself as one of the most popular WWII historians, selling several million copies of his books in 40 countries. For decades he worked as a war and conflict reporter for the world’s major broadcasters, reporting from across Africa, South America, the Middle and Far East and winning numerous awards. His books include the World War Two classics The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Hunting the Nazi Bomb, SAS Nazi Hunters, SAS Ghost Patrol, SAS Italian Job, SAS Band of Brothers, SAS Brothers in Arms, The Flame of Resistance on Josephine Baker, SAS Great Escapes 1 & 2 and 3 plus the Paddy Mayne & SAS ‘trilogy’ SAS Brothers in Arms, SAS Forged in Hell and SAS Daggers Drawn.

Many of his books have been made, or are being made, into movies or TV drama series or adapted as plays for the stage. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare came out as a major movie directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. SAS Great Escapes 4 is published in May 2025 by Quercus.

Lewis has raised tens of thousands of pounds for charitable concerns connected with his writing.

Ben Macintyre is the multimillion-copy bestselling author of books including Colditz, Agent Sonya, SAS: Rogue Heroes, The Spy and the Traitor, Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat and A Spy Among Friends. He is a columnist and Associate Editor at The Times, and has worked as the newspaper’s correspondent in New York, Paris and Washington. Several of his books have been made into films and television series, including Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends and SAS: Rogue Heroes.

Hilary Meredith-Beckham is a solicitor, lobbyist and campaigner best known for her work on behalf of UK service personnel, veterans and their families. Hilary has acted in thousands of cases against the MoD, recovering hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation. Hilary’s career in protecting the welfare of the armed forces spans cases from Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Gulf War 1, Afghanistan and Iraq including incidents on manoeuvres and in training in countries from Belize to Hong Kong and Canada.

She provided evidence to the Select Defence Committee on the Iraq historic abuse cases, which ultimately contributed to the closure of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team. Hilary gave evidence at the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Brecon Beacon fatalities, Beyond Endurance, recommending that the MoD should be subject to the Corporate Manslaughter Act where there has been a reckless disregard for life – a recommendation which the Inquiry upheld.

The Law Society paid tribute to Hilary’s “groundbreaking work on behalf of the Armed Forces”.

Clare Mulley is an award-winning author focused on female experience during the Second World War. Her books include AGENT ZO, about the only woman to parachute from Britain to enemy-occupied Poland, to play a key role in the largest organised act of defiance against Nazi German occupation, longlisted for The Women’s Prize for Non Fiction. Also THE WOMEN WHO FLEW FOR HITLER, THE SPY WHO LOVED and THE WOMAN WHO SAVED THE CHILDREN. Popular on TV, radio and pods, Clare reviews widely across the papers, and has served as a judge for several book prizes. She is a recipient of the Polish honour, the Bene Merito, and the Daily Mail Biographers Club Prize. She lives in Essex with the sculptor Ian Wolter, too many books, and a dog who needs more baths. www.claremulley.com

Sir Robin Niblett is an expert on the relations between Europe, the US, and China and their implications for risk management by governments and private institutions. He is a Distinguished Fellow with Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs), where he was the Director and Chief Executive from 2007 to 2022, and Distinguished Fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute. He is also Senior Adviser to the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington DC, where he served as the Executive Vice President and Director of its Europe Programme. Robin is the author of The New Cold War: How the Contest Between the US and China Will Shape Our Century (Atlantic Books, 2024) and numerous reports on British, European and US foreign policy.

Jesse Norman is a British politician who has served as Shadow Leader of the House of Commons since November 2024. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been a Member of Parliament for Hereford and South Herefordshire since 2010.
He served as a Minister in the Treasury, Foreign Office, Cabinet Office, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the Department for Transport. Among his Ministerial roles he served as Paymaster General and Financial Secretary to the Treasury.

Charles Pither trained at St Thomas’ Hospital in London and was subsequently appointed as a consultant specialist in pain management at that hospital. He worked in that field for over thirty years setting up the groundbreaking INPUT rehabilitation programme. During this time, he published numerous research papers and contributed chapters to textbooks and monographs. However, throughout his medical career he continued to write creatively, poetry as well as humour and essays, short stories and a novel. Having retired from clinical medicine he has been able to concentrate more on his writing with a regular travel blog. He as other work in progress including a second novel.

He lives on a windy hill in Buckinghamshire.

Anna Reid is a historian and journalist. She has written history-cum-travel books on Ukraine and Siberia, and the first post-Communism English-language history of World War Two’s Siege of Leningrad. Her latest book, A Nasty Little War: the West’s Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution, charts the Allies’ disastrous intervention into the 1918-20 Russian Civil War. A former Kyiv correspondent for the Economist, she is a regular visitor to Ukraine, and media commentator.

As a motivational speaker and coach, Ian Rivers shares his experiences to inspire others to cultivate mental resilience in their own lives. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining a positive mindset, staying focused in challenging situations, and leveraging adversity as an opportunity for growth.

Moreover, Rivers' passion for adventure sports, such as mountaineering and ocean rowing, underscores his willingness to push his mental and physical limits. Whether climbing the world's highest peaks or rowing solo across the North Atlantic Ocean, Rivers consistently demonstrates a resilient mindset characterized by determination, adaptability, and perseverance.

David Ross is a professional writer and historian whose interests are primarily in historic ships and railway systems. His publications include works on battleships and submarines and he is currently working on a technical history of aircraft carriers. He grew up in Scotland but has lived in Herefordshire for 20 years, and he was spurred to write a history of the Civil War in Herefordshire when he discovered that a Scottish army had besieged Hereford in 1645. His talk will centre on the experiences of Hereford city in the course of the war.

Tony Rushmer is an experienced journalist working for print and broadcast media for 30 years. He  has covered a wide range of top class sport events including the Ryder Cup, Royal Ascot and Premier League football for national press, the BBC and SKY Sports, and previously worked in local BBC radio. He was inspired to write SAS Duty Before Glory: The True WW2 Story of SAS Original Reg Seekings when he discovered the extraordinary story of this founding member of the SAS, an ordinary man who rose from the bottom of the ranks to squadron sergeant-major, becoming one of the British Army’s most highly decorated non-commissioned officers of the Second World War.

Harriet Rushton is a marine biologist by trade. She has spent much of her career working with marine environmental assessments, from fisheries analysis, to advising the Royal Navy and Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S). Harriet has been with the DE&S Salvage and Marine Operations (SALMO) Wreck Management Programme team since 2023, and provides a marine biologist’s perspective into the assessment of the inventory of over 5,000 MOD-owned wrecks around the world.

Philippe Sands is Professor of Public Understanding of Law at UCL, visiting professor at Harvard Law School and a practising barrister at 11 KBW. He has been involved in many significant international cases in recent years, including Pinochet, Congo, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Iraq, Guantanamo, Chagos and the Rohingya. He has served as President of English PEN and as a member of the board of the Hay Festival.

Louise Savidge is a former teacher with a passion for the ancient world. She enjoys discussing books on her channel LouiseSavidgeMuses and hosts the Women’s Prize Book Club with her son, Simon.

Anne Sebba is a historian and an award-winning biographer who began her career as a Reuters correspondent based in London and Rome. She has written eleven works of non-fiction, mostly about iconic 20th century women, translated into a variety of languages including French, Polish, Czech, Japanese and Chinese, makes regular television and radio appearances and has presented two BBC radio documentaries about musicians. She is the author of the international bestseller That Woman, an acclaimed biography of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor, and the prize-winning Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved and Died Under Nazi Occupation. Her most recent book was Ethel Rosenberg, the Short Life and Great Betrayal of an American Wife and Mother, shortlisted for the Wingate award. Anne is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research and trustee of the National Archives Trust. She lives in London.

As a young foreign correspondent, he witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union. He first warned of a revanchist Russia in the mid-1990s and has researched and written about the topic extensively since then. As a British soldier, he served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and the campaign against ISIS, where he witnessed the changing nature of war at first hand. As an MP from 2017 to 2024, he warned of the growing threat to peace from Russia.

Dr Seely has long been fascinated by the fusion of different forms of conflict. He devoted a decade of academic study to his PhD from King’s College London. The New Total War is the result of over thirty years of expertise in Russia, Ukraine and modern warfare.

Matt Skelhorn has worked for the Salvage and Marine Operations (SALMO) team in MOD Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) for 15 years. With his colleague Harriet Rushton he runs the Wreck Management Programme which addresses the environmental and safety concerns associated with the oil and ammunition remaining on MOD owned shipwrecks. He has conducted activities on numerous wrecks including monitoring the WWII battleship HMS ROYAL OAK, the removal of oil from the wreck of the tanker RFA Darkdale off St Helena and surveys of HMS PRINCE OF WALES and HMS REPULSE off Malaysia and HMS CASSANDRA in the Baltic.

MEP helps military leavers, dynamic professionals, and corporate teams unlock their people potential through evidence-based programmes that futureproof careers and organisations.

Lord Soames of Fletching is a British politician and was Minister for the Armed Forces between 1994 and 1997. He has a deep interest in and knowledge of defence and international relations, and speaks regularly in the House of Lords on matters of national security.

Nicholas is the grandson of Sir Winston Churchill and will be talking at the Festival on “Churchill, the Great Human Being”.

Terry Stiastny is an author, journalist and broadcaster on national and international radio. She reports on British politics for Times Radio and is a frequent commentator on Monocle Radio. Her debut non-fiction book, Believable Lies, combines her interests in politics, international history and journalism. She has previously published two political thrillers: Acts of Omission and Conflicts of Interest (John Murray). Acts of Omission won Political Fiction Book of the Year at the Political Book Awards in 2015. Before that, Terry was a correspondent at the BBC, where she worked on radio and television, based in Westminster, Brussels and Berlin, and reporting from many other countries. She was educated at Oxford University, earning an M.Phil in International Relations. She lives in London.

Jen Stout is a journalist, writer, and radio producer from Scotland, frequently working in Ukraine. Originally from Shetland she has lived in Germany and Russia. Her reports are often found in the Sunday Post and on BBC Radio.

Night Train to Odesa has now been a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, won the Saltire Society First Book of the Year award and has been longlisted for the Highland Book Prize.

Dr Victoria Taylor is an award-winning aviation historian. She has published in various mainstream publications including BBC History Extra, Britain at War, and Iron Cross magazines.

Victoria has also served as both an on-screen expert and off-screen consultant for a number of historical documentaries for television and radio, including BBC Two, Channel 5, History Hit, Sky History, National Geographic, and BBC Radio 4.

Paul Vicary served over 35 years in the British Army, his latter 22 years were based in a Special Military Unit, earning a meritorious medal for his exemplary service. He operated in high-pressure environments worldwide, faced adversaries directly, journeyed to both geographic poles, and repeatedly tested his resilience and mental health.

His extensive skills and experience have prepared him for a successful second career in training and consultancy focusing on both the physical aspects, like medical training "above the iceberg", and mental health training "below the iceberg".

Paul received the ‘Heropreneur of the Year 2021’ award in recognition of his significant contributions and lifesaving efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic through his business initiatives. He maintains engagement with the Herefordshire veteran community through part-time work as the Veteran’s Liaison for Help for Heroes.

In April 2022, he published his book, *PLAN D*, which details his North Pole expedition, the unexpected challenges encountered, and the valuable insights gained.

Julia Wheeler is a writer, journalist and former BBC Gulf Correspondent. She chairs discussions at festivals including Cheltenham (Literature and Science), Hay and Manchester in the UK, as well as in the Middle East and North America. She has moderated events at The British Library, Royal Geographical Society and onboard Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. Julia is a trustee of the Stratford Literary Festival.

Tim Willasey-Wilsey, CMG, is Visiting Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London and Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United-Services Institute (RUSI). He served for twenty-seven years as a Foreign Office diplomat in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe. He has published numerous articles and reviews for both the national press and academic institutions and think tanks.

Ash Winter served for 14 years in The Queen’s Royal Hussars in multiple roles across the globe including hostile and peacetime operations, latterly in the welfare sector that forged a new career following illness and injury. His recovery journey has seen him break a Guinness World Record, compete in multiple sporting disciplines and an Arctic expedition. Ash has an extensive welfare background with lived experience, supporting our veteran community and beyond in his roles with Help For Heroes, Men Walking & Talking and The Guild Of Mace-Bearers. Ash is a multi-award winning mental health advocate receiving the “Most Outstanding Charitable Contribution Award” for his efforts with the veteran community in Herefordshire. In 2023 Ash was awarded “The Community Award” in the English Veterans Awards for his work in the community. Ash is a published author of Keratoconus and Me detailing how he came to terms with his diagnosis and has compiled Why We Walk, a series of mental health stories for Men Walking And Talking.