An excellent book to prepare to visit a tragic place.

Gun Mart, December 2018 – reviewed by John Norris

A very interesting and instructive book and an attractive visual documentation for the general public and ideal for the land modeller.

Read the full Spanish review here.

José Manuél Rico Cortés (Mister JM) - Miniaturas JM

As featured in

The Northumbrian

The Walking the Western Front series started in 2012 with the release of two films on the Ypres Salient. Directed by acclaimed film maker Ed Skelding with guest historian Nigel Cave, the series of films offered a detailed tour of the battlefields, exploring the skirmishes originally fought there as well as calling on Nigel's high level of expertise. The duo also visited a number of war cemeteries and famous locations on the battlefields.

This book, brought to you by the same team, is aimed as a companion to the DVD series and explores the history of the battlefields through the eyes of the camera team. Complete with 150 pictures, both in colour and black and white taken over a 20 year period reflecting the author's many filming trips to the Somme, the book shows the battlefield as it was 100 years ago and is accompanied by a shot of the exact same spot as it stands today. The author then explains the significance of the photographs and why they were included in both the book and the film. While researching the battlefields, the author took many photographs with the intention of selection locations for filming. Each has been carefully chosen to maintain the narrative and, as much as possible, to put the viewer/reader on the spot where the action took place.

During the centenary anniversary of the Great War, these films and book are designed to follow on from the success of Great Battles of the Great War as more people visit the battlefields. While this book will take the reader to the most recognised locations on the Somme, it will also take them to the places less well known, off the beaten track.

Armourer, November – December 2016

This is an excellent book. It is not merely an accompaniment to the 2 previous videos, but a book which stands in its own right both as a record of that awful day, but also a key to unlocking the question which faces any visitor to the Somme battlefields. “How could all that horror have happened here, in these rolling fields and green woods?” The panoramic format of the photographs, and the care taken to relate them to the text which tells the story of the site, helps the reader/visitor to orientate themselves into the events of 1916 in a way which the old grainy black and white contemporary pictures cannot. I stood on the lip of the Lochnagar Crater for the centenary ceremony and looked behind me at the fields in the bright early morning sunshine trying to imagine the moment 2 minutes later when the troops went over the top. This book resurrects that experience and brings the battlefield to life by distilling 100 years into a set of distinctive and often moving pictures. The production quality is very good, which greatly helps the reproduction of the photographs; the size and format makes it equally at home in your rucksack or on the proverbial coffee-table.
Peter Moth

Peter Moth