Speakers & Chairs 2026

Eleanor Anstruther was born in London, educated at Westminster School and studied History of Art at Manchester University where she was distracted from finishing her degree by a trip to India. She was lost and found for the next twelve years, starting a commune and travelling the world before finally settling down to write. Her acclaimed debut novel, A Perfect Explanation, (Salt Books) was long listed for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the 2019 Not The Booker Prize. Find her on Substack where she runs The Literary Obsessive and much loved interview series, The Obsessive Live.

Ben Barry is the Senior Fellow for Land Warfare for the International Institute for Strategic Studies which he joined in 2010. Before this he served in the British Army where he commanded both an armoured infantry battalion and a multinational brigade on UN and NATO operations in Bosnia. He was Director of the British Army Staff in the UK Ministry of Defence and author of the Army’s lessons learned analysis of post-conflict stabilisation of Iraq. Ben is the author of Blood, Metal and Dust: How Victory Turned into Defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq (2020), which was shortlisted for The Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History 2021, the British Army Book of the Year 2021, the 2020 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award and the Templer Medal Book Prize 2021.

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. His 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. He has also worked in the USA.

Andrew Bayliss is Associate Professor in Greek History at the University of Birmingham. He has taught and studied in Australia, Greece and the UK, and his published works on ancient Greek history include Oath and State in Ancient Greece (2012), The Spartans(2020) and The Spartans: A Very Short Introduction (2022).

Sparta is his first full-length book introducing the subject to the general reader.

Flight-Lieutenant Colin Bell DFC was born in East Moley, not far from Hampton Court Palace, in March 1921. Known for his talks on his wartime service, he has made several podcasts for We Have Ways of Making you Talk, continues to drive, to travel and to be active on social media.

During his tenure at King’s College London, David Betz has published extensively on warfare, counterinsurgency, and cybersecurity. In 2011, Betz argued that concerns about cyberwarfare had close relation to the alarmism found in military circles over aviation a century earlier in Cyberwar Is Not Coming. In Carnage and Connectivity (2015), Betz analysed the impact of global connectivity on military power. In 2017, he co-authored Putting the Strategy Back into Strategic Communications, advocating for a more robust strategic foundation in communications theory. Betz also addressed the application of ethics and morals in modern battlefield contexts in War, ‘Moral Forces’, and the ‘Virus of Strategism’.

Nigel Biggar CBE is Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Pusey House, Oxford. He holds a B.A. in Modern History from Oxford and a Ph.D. in Christian Theology & Ethics from the University of Chicago. He was appointed C.B.E. “for services to Higher Education” in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours list. His most recent books are Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2023), What’s Wrong with Rights? (2020), In Defence of War (2013), and Between Kin and Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the Nation (2014). In the press he has written articles for the Financial Times, the (London) Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, the (Glasgow} Herald, the Irish Times, Standpoint, The Critic, The Article, Unherd and Quillette.

Piers Blofeld is a literary agent and, apart from a brief stint as a story consultant in the video games industry he has worked in publishing for the whole of his career. A regular commentator on the mysteries of the book business he has had his own column in Writing Magazine for the last five years. Born and bred in Norfolk, his surname made it all but inevitable he would nurture a fascination with supervillainy and spying. Master of Liesis his first book.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative and a senior associate fellow at the European Leadership Network. She is a columnist with Foreign Policy and Politico Europe, where she writes on national security and the globalised economy, and is the author of God’s Spies and The Defender’s Dilemma.

Mark J A Cann is Chief Executive of The British Forces Foundation and the Burma Star Memorial Fund, leading two organisations dedicated to supporting serving personnel and preserving the legacy of those who served. Before entering the charitable sector, Mark served for 12 years in the British Army with the 17th/21st Lancers and later the Queen’s Royal Lancers. His service took him on operations to Belize, Mozambique, Bosnia and Cyprus, as well as postings in India, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Canada and the United Kingdom. This experience continues to inform his understanding of leadership, service, and the enduring impact of conflict on those who serve and their families.

A compelling and engaging speaker, Mark brings together lived military experience, historical insight, and contemporary relevance. His talks are known for their honesty, humanity and ability to connect with audiences ranging from school assemblies to large formal events.

Helen Carr is a historian and writer specialising in medieval history and public history. Her bestselling first book, The Red Prince, was a Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year. Her second book, an edited volume of essays titled What is History, Now? has become primary reading for history students and enthusiasts globally. Helen also works in podcasting, television and journalism and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a postgraduate researcher at Queen Mary University of London.

Martin Cawthorne has worked with the Royal Hospital Chelsea since 2014, initially involved on a project to digitise part of the institution’s archive collection. These archives, stored for decades in an attic above one of the Long Wards, included original source material from the Second World War. Martin subsequently researched the Royal Hospital’s wartime history as part of a Master’s Degree in Historical Studies at the University of Oxford, for which he was awarded a Distinction. His book, The Royal Hospital Chelsea at War was published in 2024. Martin’s research is used extensively by the Royal Hospital to tell its wartime story. Martin worked in the City for almost 30 years and is a member of the investment committee which oversees the management of the Royal Hospital’s financial reserves.

Damian Collins 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 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. Damian lived in Herefordshire for over twenty years, including going to school at St Mary’s High School in Lugwardine, and at Belmont Abbey.

Sam Cranny-Evans is a defence analyst and consultant as well as an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, the oldest defence think-tank in the world. He has previously worked at the Janes Information Group as the lead land warfare analyst, focusing on all of the world’s armoured fighting vehicles. He has published thousands of articles on armoured warfare and the technologies driving its development throughout his career and now runs a defence news outlet called Calibre Defence.

Steve Crawshaw has written and worked on human rights and justice for more than thirty years, where his roles included Russia and East Europe Editor during the east European revolutions and Balkan wars, then Germany Bureau Chief and Chief Foreign Correspondent. In 2002, he joined Human Rights Watch as UK director and then UN advocacy director in New York. In 2010 he joined Amnesty International as International Advocacy Director and then Director of the Office of the Secretary General. In 2018 he became Policy and Advocacy Director at Freedom from Torture. He studied Russian and German at the universities of Oxford and St Petersburg, and lived in Poland from 1978 to 1981

Charles Cumming was born in Scotland. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh, he was approached by the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and used his experiences as the basis for his debut novel, A Spy By Nature.

Cumming’s espionage fiction has since won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and Bloody Scotland Crime Book of the Year, and his novels have been translated into fourteen languages. The Observer has described Charles as ‘the rightful inheritor of John le Carré’s crown’. His most recent novel, Kennedy 35, was a Sunday Times Thriller of the Month and was chosen as a Thriller of the Year by Waterstones and the Financial Times. His recent screenwriting credits include the critically-acclaimed Sky/Peacock adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s The Day of the Jackal.

Tom Cutterham is a historian of the American Revolution and the author of Empire Ablaze: The American Revolution and the Atlantic Working Class (Verso, 2026). He is an Associate Professor of United States History at the University of Birmingham, where he has taught since 2016. Before that, he was a student and junior research fellow at Oxford University. His first book was Gentlemen Revolutionaries: Power and Justice in the New American Republic (Princeton University Press, 2017), and his work has also appeared in scholarly venues such as the William and Mary Quarterly and the Journal of the Early Republic.

Mark Dunton is Principal Contemporary Records Specialist at The National Archives, London, and has in-depth knowledge of researching public records, with a particular interest in 20th-century British political, social and economic history.

Lucy Betteridge-Dyson is a military & animal historian, author, and PhD candidate at the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London. She has a strong personal connection to the Burma Campaign through her grandfather, Captain Edwin Alan Robert Syms, who served with 44 (Royal Marine) Commando during the Third Arakan Campaign, the subject of her first book, Jungle Commandos: The Battle for Arakan, Burma 1945. A Burma Star Memorial Fund scholar, her current research combines methodologies from military history and animal studies to explore the role of horses and mules in shaping operations and the institutional development of the British Army and imperial forces between 1918 and 1945.

Charlie English is the former head of international news at the Guardian. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, he is the author of several widely acclaimed histories including The Snow Tourist, The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu, The Gallery of Miracles and Madness and The CIA Book Club. He lives in London.

Ahana Datta Fasel is Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Security Science and Technology, Imperial College London. Advising governments and companies globally on their cyber defence strategies, she is a trustee at Privacy International and is on the strategic advisory board of UK Research and Innovation. Previously the Financial Times’ cyber chief, she has held multiple senior roles in the UK Government, serving the Ministry of Justice, the Cabinet Office and the National Cyber Security Centre. Her editorials have been published in the Financial Times and Columbia Journalism Review. She holds a PhD from University College London.

Colin Freeman is a former chief foreign correspondent of The Sunday Telegraph, now a freelance foreign affairs writer. He has reported on Ukraine since the outbreak of the Russian invasion, mainly for The Daily Telegraph and Spectator. Colin is also the author of three previous books: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: The mission to rescue the hostages the world forgot (Icon Books, 2021). Kidnapped: Life as a Somali pirate hostage (Monday Books, 2011) was about the author’s own experience of being abducted in Somalia in 2008. And The Curse of the Al-Dulaimi Hotel and other half-truths from Baghdad (Monday Books, 2008) is a book of reportage about post-Saddam Iraq.

Frank Gardner has been the BBC's Security Correspondent since 2002. He holds a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies. In 2004, while filming in Saudi Arabia, he was ambushed by terrorists, shot multiple times and left for dead. He survived and returned to active news reporting within a year. Although paralysed in the legs, he still travels extensively, reporting from Ukraine to Colombia to Saudi Arabia. Awarded an OBE in 2005 for services to journalism, Frank published his bestselling memoir, Blood and Sand, in 2006. His first novel, the thriller Crisis, which introduced readers to SIS operative Luke Carlton, was a Sunday Times No.1 bestseller. The second and third Luke Carlton thrillers, Ultimatum and Outbreak, were also bestsellers, as was the fourth, the Taiwan-set Invasion. Frank Gardner lives in London.

Annie Garthwaite is the acclaimed author of two novels that bring the women of the Wars of the Roses to life. Cecily (Viking, Penguin 2021) was named a 'top pick' by The Times and Sunday Times, a 'Best Book of 2021' by independent bookshops and Waterstones, and has recently been optioned for television. The King's Mother (Viking, Penguin 2024) was named ‘Book of the Month’ by The Times immediately upon publication. Annie came to writing after a 30-year international business career, determined to cast light on female histories so often overlooked.

Keir Giles has advised governments worldwide on the Russian threat. A senior fellow with Chatham House’s Russia programme, and Director of the Conflict Studies Research Centre, he is a regular commentator for the BBC and international media. His prescient books include What Deters Russia and Moscow Rules.

Georgina Godwin is a broadcaster, interviewer and writer working across literature, culture and geopolitics. She is Books Editor at Monocle Radio, where she hosts the flagship literary programme Meet the Writers and the current affairs show The Globalist. She also presents Visionary, a podcast series for Here East exploring the people and ideas shaping the world to come.

Originally from Zimbabwe, Georgina helped found the country’s first independent radio station and was subsequently declared an ‘enemy of the state’ and banned from returning. She trained as a classical actor at Mountview Theatre School in London and worked in British theatre before moving into broadcasting. She regularly chairs literary events and conversations around the world, appearing at festivals including Hay, Cheltenham, Adelaide, Jaipur and Charleston, and at institutions such as Georgetown University.

Adrian Goldsworthy studied at Oxford, where his doctoral thesis examined the Roman army. He went on to become an acclaimed historian of Ancient Civilisations, with numerous works of non fiction including The Eagle and the Lion, Philip and Alexander: Kings and Conquerors, Caesar, The Fall of the West, Pax Romana, and Hadrian’s Wall.

Chris Hall is a retired Librarian and trade unionist. He has researched and written on military history, specialising in the Spanish Civil War. His previous published works include an account of George Orwell’s fellow British and Irish volunteers. He has written about Manchester nurse Madge Addy, who served in the Spanish Civil War and was a secret agent in occupied France in World War II.

His latest book published this year is British Volunteers and the Spanish Civil War: ‘The Passionate Cause,’ 1936-39. Ninety years ago, a Civil War broke out in a then little-known country. For thousands of British, Irish and Commonwealth people, the Spanish Civil War was their main focus for three years. Over 2,500 ‘British’ (including Irish and Commonwealth) men and women fought in the International Brigades or served in the medical services of the Spanish Republic. Over 500 volunteers were to die in Spain.

Monty Halls is a former Royal Marines Officer who served for over a decade. His subsequent careers as expedition leader and broadcaster have made him a house-hold name, most notably presenting Monty Hall’s Great Escape on the BBC. His expeditions have taken him to the some of the most remote corners of the earth.

He continues to support the Royal Marines through his ambassadorship of the RM Charity, where he raises funds for the veteran community. He also advocates for marine conservation. Monty is based in Devon, where he runs Seadog, a production company specialising in military, adventure, and wildlife film-making.

Adam Hart is a 26-year-old historian and journalist from Pembrokeshire in south west Wales. After studying History and Journalism at university, 22-year-old Adam retraced his great grandfather Frank Griffiths' epic escape from occupied Europe in the Second World War after he was shot down on a secret midnight mission to drop supplies to the French Resistance. Travelling 1,200 miles through France, Switzerland and Spain, Adam tracked down and met descendants of the heroic French civilians who risked their lives to hide, clothe, feed and transport Frank out of Europe under the noses of the Nazis. Operation Pimento is not only a riveting true story, but also a vivid account of one young man's journey to discover more about a man he'd never met, but always knew to be a hero. It was published by Hodder and Stoughton in June 2025 and was shortlisted for the Hatchard’s First Biography Prize

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, he 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. He 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.

Major Chris Hunter is a bestselling author, bomb disposal specialist, high-risk security advisor and motivational speaker. Joining the British Army at sixteen, he served for 17 years predominantly as a high-threat bomb disposal operator, including four years attached to the UK Special Forces. His deployments spanned numerous conflict zones across the globe, earning him the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his actions during a Middle East bomb disposal tour in 2004.

Dan Jones is a bestselling historian, TV presenter and award-winning journalist. His non-fiction books, which have sold more than a million copies worldwide, include the Sunday Times bestsellers THE PLANTAGENETS, THE TEMPLARS, POWERS AND THRONES and HENRY V. His fiction includes the acclaimed Essex Dogs trilogy, set during the Hundred Years War, concluding with LION HEARTS. Dan has written and presented numerous TV series including Secrets of Great British Castles, Britain’s Bloodiest Dynasty: The Plantagenets and London: 2000 Years of History. He writes and hosts the Sony Music podcast This is History. For a decade Dan was a weekly columnist for the London Evening Standard; he has also contributed to dozens of newspapers and magazines worldwide, including the New York Times, Sunday Times, Telegraph and Spectator. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Trustee of Historic Royal Palaces.

Fergal Keane is a multi award winning foreign correspondent and author. For nearly forty years he has reported for the BBC from the world’s conflict zones. He is the winner of awards from BAFTA, EMMY, Royal Television Society among others. His book Season of Blood on the Rwandan genocide won the George Orwell Prize for political writing. His most recent work is The Madness - a Memoir of War and Love which explores his experience of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a consequence of his exposure to atrocities.

David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood, is a BAFTA-winning film and television producer. He is one of the founders of Heirs of Slavery, a campaign group that seeks to redress the horrors of the Transatlantic slave trade. He lives in Yorkshire. Out of Colditz is his second book.

Alan Lester is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Sussex and Adjunct Professor of History at La Trobe University. He has written eleven books on British colonialism, most recently Ruling the World: Freedom, Civilisation and Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century British Empire; and Deny and Disavow: The British Empire in the Culture War (co-authored; 2nd edition).

Sunday Times bestseller, 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, 3 and 4 plus SAS Brothers in Arms, SAS Forged in Hell and SAS Daggers Drawn on Paddy Mayne & the SAS in WW2. SAS The Great Train Raid was published in October 2025 to great acclaim. Many of his books have been made, or are being made, into movies or TV drama series. In 2024 The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare came out as a major movie directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and distributed by Lionsgate in the US and Amazon worldwide where it is still available starring Henry Cavill (Superman), Alan Ritchson (Reacher), Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) and Eiza González, amongst others.  SAS Great Escapes 5 is Damien’s latest book.

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

Matt Lewis is a medieval historian, author, presenter and podcaster with a focus on the Wars of the Roses. Matt has written biographies of Richard III, of his father Richard, Duke of York, and other medieval figures, as well as accounts of The Anarchy and the Wars of the Roses, and The Survival of the Princes in the Tower. Matt hosts the Echoes of History podcast, co-hosts the Gone Medieval podcast, and presents and contributes to documentaries for History Hit and on traditional television.

Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton was commissioned into the Irish Guards before serving with 22 SAS from 1987-1995 as a troop and squadron commander, with a tour between as an operations officer at special forces headquarters. After leaving the army, he served as Principal Private Secretary to Prince William, Prince Harry and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, between 2005-2014. He is now an author with his first novel, ‘Beyond the Edge of Light’, published in July this year.

Iain MacGregor is a successful editor of non fiction for major publishing houses, working with talented and bestselling historians such as Michael Wood, Simon Schama, William Taubman, Alice Roberts and John Nichol – as well as publishing tie-ins with archives and podcasts such as the Imperial War Museum and R4’s ‘In  Our Time’ series with Melvyn Bragg. He is also a writer and public speaker on modern history, with pieces in the Guardian, BBC History Magazine, the Spectator and the Washington Post. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He lives with his family in London.

Dr Patrick Mileham was educated at Wellington College, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and Cambridge. Commissioned in 1965, he served on operational tours in Aden and Northern Ireland, then with the British Army of the Rhine, the Yeomanry, as principal staff officer of the Universities Officer Training Corps, and in Defence Intelligence. From 1992 taking up university posts, he has worked with Chatham House, the Royal United Services Institute, Sandhurst and other military colleges, and later the Defence Academy. He has conducted various studies for the MOD, and has written numerous academic articles, chapters and histories, including his highly successful Yeomanry Regiments, which went into three editions (1985, 1994 and 2004) with a foreword by the doyen of cavalry authors, the late Marquess of Anglesey.

Giles Milton is the million-copy, internationally bestselling author of a dozen works of narrative history. His books have been translated into twenty-five languages. One of Milton's previous works, Nathaniel's Nutmeg, is currently being developed into a major screen project. Milton is the writer and narrator of the acclaimed narrative podcast series, Ministry of Secrets, produced by Sony and available on all platforms. He lives in London and Burgundy.

Roger Moorhouse is a specialist in modern German and Polish history, particularly the Third Reich and World War Two. He has written a number of books in this capacity, including Killing Hitler (2006), Berlin at War (2010), The Devils’ Alliance (2014) and the critically acclaimed First to Fight (2019), which was awarded the Polish Foreign Ministry History Prize in 2020. Roger’s books have appeared in more than 20 languages.

Rory Naismith is professor of early medieval history at the University of Cambridge and the author of prize-winning books Money and Power in Anglo-Saxon England, The Coinage of Southern England 796–865, Citadel of the Saxons, and Making Money in the Early Middle Ages.

James Newby is President and Chief Executive of the New Model Institute for Technology & Engineering (NMITE), a pioneering higher-education institution based in Hereford that is rethinking how engineers and technologists are educated to meet real-world challenges. An educational innovator and outspoken advocate for social mobility, he regularly writes and speaks about widening participation, skills, place-based growth and the need to challenge established systems in higher education that can inhibit innovation and opportunity.

Mark Nicol was born into an army family and has reported on UK military operations for 25 years. His fifth book explores the SAS’s history in Afghanistan from its biggest battle to its darkest episode, the suspected shooting of disarmed and surrendered insurgents on night raids. He is the only journalist to have spoken to soldiers who took part. He has also provided witness testimony to the High Court inquiry. Mark is the Daily Mail’s Defence and Diplomacy Editor and an international affairs commentator. He has also lectured at the Joint Services Command and Staff College. His previous titles have covered incidents such as the deaths of six Royal Military Policemen in Iraq.

Paul O'Keeffe is a lecturer and writer based in Liverpool. His acclaimed books include Waterloo: The Aftermath and, Culloden: Battle & Aftermath, described by the Daily Mail as ‘As vivid as the Ten O'Clock News... fascinating, detailed, meticulously researched... tremendous'.

Sir Ben Okri was born in Minna, Nigeria. His childhood was divided between Nigeria, where he saw first-hand the consequences of war, and London. He has won many awards over the years, including the Booker Prize for Fiction, and is also an acclaimed essayist, playwright, and poet. In 2019 Astonishing the Gods was named as one of the BBC’s ‘100 Novels That Shaped Our World’.

Dr Bob Parr MBE is a 25-year veteran of the SAS and UK National Intelligence. He is an Associate of King’s College London and a Visiting Research Fellow with the Changing Character of War Centre at the University of Oxford.

Allison Pearson (Chair) is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author. She is a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and co-presents the popular Planet Normal podcast with Liam Halligan. Allison’s first novel, I Don’t Know How She Does It, was made into a movie starring Sarah Jessica Parker and her second novel, I Think I Love You, is soon to be a West End musical. She is a tireless advocate for free speech and a passionate supporter of Justice for Veterans.

Roland Philipps was a leading publisher for many years. A Spy Named Orphan, his first book, arose from lifelong connections to Donald Maclean and his story. It was shortlisted for the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2018, was a Daily Mail Book of the Year and received widespread critical acclaim. His second book, Victoire, was published by The Bodley Head in 2021.

Ollie Plunket served a decade in the British Army, as a Regular and Reservist Officer with The Rifles Regiment. Operational deployments include supporting coalition efforts to counter-ISIS in Iraq, NATO’s Enhanced Forward Prescence to deter Russian activity in Estonia, and the UK’s commitment to UN peacekeeping in Cyprus. Other deployments include Liberia, Sumatra, and Samoa. His final posting was as the military advisor (Equerry) to Queen Camilla, through the first three years of the new reign. Beyond service, he continues to work in an advisory capacity, in the private sector.

Sir Paul Preston CBE is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and was previously a lecturer at the University of Reading and Professor of Modern History at Queen Mary University of London. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and holds the Marcel Proust Chair of the European Academy of Yuste. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by universities in Spain and the UK. In 2006, he was awarded the International Ramon Llull Prize by the Catalan Government and, in 2018, the Guernica Peace Prize. Among his many works are Franco: A Biography, Comrades, Doves of War: Four Women of Spain, Juan Carlos, The Spanish Civil War, The Spanish Holocaust, The Last Stalinist, The Last Days of the Spanish Republic and A People Betrayed. In Spain, he was appointed a Comendador de la Orden del Mérito Civil in 1986 and awarded, in 2007, the Gran Cruz de la Orden de Isabel la Católica. He lives in London.

Oliver Price is a historian of Modern Britain. He completed his PhD in 2024 and has had work featured in publications including Contemporary British History, Modern British History and History Today.

Edmund Richardson is Professor of Classics at Durham University. He has published Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City (2021), The King's Shadow and Classical Victorians: Scholars, Scoundrels and Generals in Pursuit of Antiquity (2013), and was named one of the BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers in 2016.

Andrew Roberts (Lord Roberts of Belgravia) is a biographer and historian of international renown whose books include Salisbury: Victorian Titan (winner of the Wolfson Prize for History), Masters and Commanders (winner of the Emery Reves Award), The Storm of War (winner of the British Army Book Prize), Napoleon the Great (winner of the Grand Prix of the Fondation Napoléon and the Los Angeles Times Biography Prize), George III (winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography) and Churchill: Walking with Destiny (Council on Foreign Relations Book Prize). Roberts is a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Literature and the Royal Historical Society, and a Trustee of the International Churchill Society. He is currently Visiting Professor at the Department of War Studies at King's College, London, and the Bonnie and Tom McCloskey Distinguished Visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

George Simm joined the Coldstream Guards in 1969 and served a total of 30 years in the British army, 25 of which were with the SAS. In that time, he served in a multitude of operations of a mostly low intensity, counter-terrorist nature. The fight against the IRA in Northern Ireland dominated much of his service, though operations in Colombia and Bosnia were also notable successes.

The Viscount Slim, Mark Slim, has spent over 30 years working in the commercial property industry, based in the City of London. He is an Executive Director of CBRE and had his own practice for many years. He is also a Non Executive Director of Oakley Properties and Chairman of Trustees for the Burma Star Memorial Fund. Until recently, he was a Non Executive Director of Muntons PLC, a position he held for 12 years.

Thomas Smith is keeper of the scholars at Rugby School and an honorary research fellow at Royal Holloway and the University of Kent. A leading expert on the Fifth Crusade, he is the author of Rewriting the First Crusade and Curia and Crusade. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2017.

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

Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer OBE saw active service in Northern Ireland, the Falklands campaign, the Gulf War and the Balkans, as well as serving in the Far East, Cyprus and Germany. Key appointments include: Chief of Staff of an Armoured Brigade, Staff Officer at the Directorate of Special Forces and Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, among many others. Spicer has developed extensive knowledge of intelligence, counterterrorism, complex relations and protective security. In 2001 he founded the private security company Aegis, which has counted the UK, US and Italian governments among its clients. He is the author of An Unorthodox Soldier: Peace and War and the Sandline Affair, a fast-moving account of his military life, including the events surrounding his time in Papua New Guinea when he was captured and held at gunpoint, A Dangerous Enterprise that charts the history of the little-known, yet remarkable 15th Motor Gunboat Flotilla, commanded directly by the Secret Intelligence Service and A Suspicion of Spies the first biography of Wilfred ‘Biffy’ Dunderdale, a ruthless and effective spymaster whose career spanned the Russian Revolution to the Cold War and beyond.

Mary Wakefield is a columnist and Commissioning Editor at the weekly magazine The Spectator for twenty years and has worked there since Boris Johnson was editor and has written for The Sun, Daily Mail, The Telegraph and The Times.

Kevin J Weddle is a Distinguished Fellow and military historian at the US Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A West Point graduate, he served over 28 years on active duty in the US Army before retiring as a colonel. Throughout his career he worked in a variety of command and staff positions in the United States and overseas including two combat deployments and command of a combat engineer battalion. He is a multiple award-winning author of books and articles, including the critically acclaimed and best-selling The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2021), winner of six national and international literary awards including the Gilder Lehrman Prize in Military History.

Lt Col (Retd) Richard Williams MBE MC, commissioned into the Parachute Regiment in 1989, was Commanding Officer 22 SAS from May 2005 to December 2007, having previously served as Officer Commanding G Squadron 22 SAS, the SAS Northern Ireland Troop and the Mountain Troop of D Squadron. He also served as a rifle platoon commander in 1 Para, as ADC to General Hew Pike commanding of 3 (UK) Division, and as the Chief of Staff of 7 Armoured Brigade.