Our Speakers 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Tessa Dunlop, PhD, is a historian, award-winning author, and broadcaster. She was a presenter on the BBC’s BAFTA-winning series Coast and has appeared on numerous history documentaries and talk shows. Tessa grew up in Scotland and now lives in London.

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.

Chris Hunter is an award-winning author, bomb disposal specialist, and high-risk security advisor whose extraordinary career has taken him from the frontline of war zones to the pages of two bestselling books. A former British Army officer, Chris spent 17 years operating in some of the world’s most dangerous environments, including four years attached to UK Special Forces. His courageous service earned him the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for outstanding bravery during a bomb disposal tour in the Middle East.

His books, Eight Lives Down and Extreme Risk, became Sunday Times bestsellers, offering gripping, first-hand insights into the life of an elite counter-IED operator. Following his military career, Chris dedicated himself to humanitarian bomb disposal, working in conflict zones such as Libya, Syria, and Iraq where he and his colleagues have dismantled thousands of Islamic State IEDs.

A sought-after speaker, Chris captivates audiences worldwide with his expertise in leadership, risk management, and resilience under pressure. His insights have also featured in major media outlets, including the acclaimed Bomb Hunters documentary for the Military History Channel.

Chris Hunter’s unique perspective, forged through high-stakes operations and life-or-death decisions, makes him an unmissable speaker at this year’s festival.

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 author of 3 books: A Thousand Years of High Sheriffs in Herefordshire Mortimer Landscape of North Herefordshire, with his 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.

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.

Dear Loll: A Wartime Marriage in Letters

“I thought I might have to go on without you”

Approaching the 80th anniversary of VE day, Hamblett Productions presents Dear Loll – an intimate insight to the wartime correspondence between journalist Gerard Fay and his wife Alice during WW2, adapted for stage by Rosanna Greenstreet and Matthew Fay.

Daisy Waterstone (The Durrells) and Charlie Hamblett (Missing You) beautifully bring to life the loneliness and love felt between the couple torn apart by war, with music by The Le Page ensemble.

See YouTube video preview here!

Mark Lynas is the author of five major works of popular science; his climate book Six Degrees won the 2008 Royal Society prize and was translated into 22 languages. He has written for the Guardian, New York Times and Washington Post, and appeared in the films Pandora’s Promise and The Island President. He has co-authored peer-reviewed scientific papers on climate change, misinformation, GMOs and vaccines, and is policy lead at the worldwide pro-science environmental campaign network WePlanet.

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 a leading expert on the relations between Europe, the US, and Asia and their implications for risk management by governments and private institutions.

Robin is the author of numerous Chatham House and CSIS reports on British, European and US foreign policy. His commentary and analysis have appeared in the world’s leading journals and newspapers, including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, The Times, and The Guardian. He is a regular commentator on Bloomberg and CNN International and speaker at major international conferences. He has testified to committees of the House of Commons and US Congress and regularly briefs boards and senior executive of global companies, financial institutions, and private foundations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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.

As one of the only members of his family not to have been employed by the Secret Intelligence Service, Alistair Wood has enjoyed a reassuringly respectable (and successful) career in advertising, working in the UK, US, Korea, and South-East Asia. He lives in London. Alistair was asked to look into his father’s story by Harold Shergold, the former head of MI6’s Soviet desk. This book is the result.