Tonie Holt

Tonie Holt is the 'Major' of Major and Mrs Holt who are well known as the authors of the leading guide books to the battlefields of the First and Second World Wars. Both he and Valmai(the 'Mrs') began writing at their schools. Their first published works were for local newspapers and then for commercial radio. They founded the company Major and Mrs Holt's Battlefield Tours in the early 1970s at which time it was the first and only company running such tours for the general public eventually covering wars as far afield as Viet Nam, the Crimea, South Africa, El Alamein, the American Civil War and of course the battles of both the First and Second World Wars. In the 1980s they were asked to take over running the Pilgrimage programme for the Royal British Legion which they completely upgraded and then handed back to the Legion when the British Government re-instated the financial support for relatives to visit the graves of loved ones. Having sold the company in the 1990s Tonie and Valmai began writing the series of guide books which is now accepted as the leader amongst such publications. Unlike many authors they do not have a team of researchers but do all their own research by travelling all the routes they recommend, visiting all the memorials and cemeteries and taking all the photographs.