Yet again we have another year of wide-ranging topics to tempt you to a meeting!  Remember, you don't have to be a member to attend!

17th January               Mike Taylor                             A Wood Too Far?  Bourlon Wood, November 1917

Current Chair of WFA Tayside Branch. Mike is an independent scholar and freelance museum professional. He has an MA and a PhD from the University of Birmingham.  He is interested in all things to do with trophy guns, 119 Infantry Brigade, and Frank Crozier.  The talk covers overlapping themes as the 119th (Welsh Bantam) Brigade, commanded by Frank Crozier from Nov 1916-Aug 1919, was a part of the 40th Division, itself a mostly Bantam formation.  In November 1917 as part of the Battle of Cambrai, Bourlon Wood was an early objective, a task given to 40^th Division.

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28th February                Louise Provan                       The Spy Who Disappeared

Louise is a very active member of the Great War Group and of the Tayside WFA Branch.  She has an MA in Military History from Wolverhampton majoring on Jacky Fisher.  She has previously presented on Dunsterforce and its activities in the Caucasus.  This talk tells the story of Reginald Teague Jones and his adventures in Trans-Caspia in 1918, a true story of espionage, banditry and derring-do in Transcaspia and the Caucasus.

Louise' talk will follow the Branch's AGM.

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11th April                        Andy Moody                           The Great war in the Films of the 1920's

In the decade following the end of the Great War, cinema audiences boomed and movies were by far the most popular source of entertainment in the country. It was natural that the momentous events of 1914-1918 would feature on the screen in some form or another but exactly how could such a medium accurately and sympathetically represent this experience? Andy Moody draws on work he did for his MA dissertation on early post war cinema to examine the question.

The 1920’s produced many innovative, thrilling and imaginative popular films of the conflict, some of which have endured but most have been forgotten by all but historians and commentators on popular culture. Taking a look at the films of the 1920’s and how the war was presented back to the people who had lived through it, the attempts at memorialisation and the introduction of melodrama, holds a mirror up to a traumatised society and a nation looking for meaning in a post war world that had changed forever.

Andy looks at films such as The Lost Battalion, Ypres, Mons, The Big Parade, Wings, Tell England, Journey’s End, Splinters and more!

Andy is a WFA member, and completed the MA in Britain and the First World War from Wolverhampton in 2022. He has written and lectured on this subject for the last couple of years, and has also been involved in an independent project to build a full scale working replica of a Medium A Whippet tank which recently made its debut at Bovington Tank Museum 'Tankfest 24’.

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30th May                         Ken Nisbet                           Commemoration

Ken is chair of the Scotland South Branch of the WFA.  His talk will lead us through the different approaches adopted towards Commemoration and Remembrance of military people and events.  Also looking at how they have changed over the years and been influenced by different conflicts.                              

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11th July                        Dave Barras                    Lost Mines of the Somme

Dave is Branch Secretary at Northumberland WFA. He has been visiting battlefields and studying the First World War for over thirty years. He is in his final year of an MA course at the University of Wolverhampton.  This talk looks beyond Hawthorn Ridge and Lochnagar and explores the wider importance of mining in the BEF plans during the Somme Battle, for the 1st July and beyond - and its impact on events.

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31st October                 Ross Beadle      Ten Decisions That Settled The Campaign to the Marne 1914

Ross is an experienced speaker with a BA in History from Hull and an MA in First World War Studies from Birmingham, he specialises in entertaining and animated talks focused mainly on battles and strategy. 
Why did the German invasion of France and Belgium in August 1914 end so badly, with a full retreat from the Marne – all in less than six weeks?  Almost uniquely for the Western Front, the first six weeks were a general's war. Key decisions were taken by Joffre, Kitchener, Moltke, and other German generals that decided the outcome.  Seeing it through the eyes of the commanders is the best way to understand a rapidly moving far flung battle.  A complex campaign is deconstructed to be accessible to any person with an interest in the war.

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12th December                                       Members Medley & Mince Pies

Our usual end-of-year round up and presentations from members, alongside Xmas nibbles and mince pies!

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