OLD MEMBERS PAGE

Please see our new members page here



















Richard Ashley - Our Weapons Adviser

Richard has been Military firearm collecting for well over 55 years. Time served gunsmith and gunmaker. 22 years as R.E.M.E. armourer, S/Sgt. Police armourer for 25 years with Suffolk and Norfolk police. Examined firearms and prepared reports for court use. Section 5 dealer for 25 years and had what was considered to be one of the finest collection of military firearms and associated equipment including fighting devices.  He lectured on military firearms and equipment and worked for many major and regimental museums. He has been armourer and guide with the British Resistance Museum for 5 years.

 


Donald Brown - Somerset 

Donald has been a A & SH. Headmaster a member of the Mendip Ranger Service and Defence of Britain Survey. He has also been a researcher of WW2 history around Somerset and especially the secret activities on Mendip. He has written a book called "Somerset versus Hitler" Countryside Books 1999, 2001 ISBN 1 85306 590 0 which is now sadly out of print although Amazon seem to sell it. See our SHOP. Donald is now retired from all the Aux unit work including research he points out!  All his findings are deposited with the Somerset Record Office and / or BRO  Museum, Parham.

 


Martin Kender - WW1 & WW2 Historian

Martin is a military historian with interests in defence policy, strategy and tactics, home defence, (anti aircraft and anti submarine warfare, air defences and air raid precautions, target registration and fire control, fixed defences and fortress and emplacement engineering.)

He has a particular interest in the twentieth century defence of southern england and in the Great War in the Eastern Mediteranean.

 


Jim Warren - Retired Volunteer with the Bath Blitz Project

Jim is a married, retired civil servant who volunteered to maintain websites as a retirement hobby, initially for the Bath Blitz Memorial Project, and then later for the Bath Heritage Watchdog.  He is on the committee of both (entirely voluntary) organisations.

He  first encountered Coleshill House as part of his Bath Blitz activities. 

Jim is  attempting to preserve as many memories as possible of those who lived through the blitz of Bath.


Rev. Matthew Gibbs - Yorkshire

Husband and father of two girls he is an amateur historian interested in the military history of the 20th Century.

His main area of interest is in non-combatant services and the civilian services focusing particularly on the Royal Army Chaplain's Department and the Home Guard, especially Yorkshire Units.

An extention of this interest is the Auxiliary Units who used the convenient cover of the Home Guard for their own purposes.

He's interested in their organisation, history, the development of uniforms and insignia and their training and role in WW2


Andy Sturgess - Dorset

Born 23rd February 1953 in Guildford, Surrey,  moved to Dorset at the age of 9 where a deep
understanding of the countryside developed. 

While at school in Beaminster, discovered via a friends father, an underground bunker on the
downs "to be used by men from the village in the event of invasion" we were told ! Many visits
made while supposedly on school crosscountry to enjoy hidden bottles of beer ! Unrelated, then followed a lifetime interest in WW11 with special focus on aviation and the lancaster bomber in particular.

Along side a fulltime job a firework display company developed. This required training in the use of various fusing and ignition devises both electrical and based on the infamous "Bickford" type delay fuse.
While reasearching another matter a sketch of an OB was seen. This flashed back and related to the Bunker near Beaminster. Research on this was
confirmed as an Auxunit Bunker.
Having had a 40year connection with this bunker it rekindled old interests and full research followed regarding the Auxunits history, operational training and field craft.


Phil Matthews - Combatives Historical Researcher
Phil is from Bristol and is a combative historical researcher with a particular interest in WW2 Training and Techniques. I was selected to provide a new forward for the only jointly written work by both Fairbairn and Sykes entitled "Shooting to Live", the proceeds of which still go to benefit their decendants. You can buy the book in the shop. See Phil's work and website  here  

Craig Brown - Australian WWII Special Operations Researcher

He has been researching various aspects of Australia's "Secret War" since 1999 and has written extensively on Australian WWII Special Operations units and related subjects. Travelling between Canberra and Far North Queensland, he is a full-time writer and heritage consultant.

In 2005, he stumbled across an as-yet unacknowledged contemporary of the Auxunits in Australia. This unit utilised many of the same training materials and operating concepts as the UK Auxunits, but were organised to operate against invading Japanese rather than Germans.

He hopes in the near future to put together the first ever published work on this mystery Australian unit. Craig's website can be viewed here  


Austin J. Ruddy - Leicestershire

Born in North London, Austin J. Ruddy has a degree in Archaeology. He has studied and collected the social and military history of the Second World War, particularly the British Home Front, for most of his life.

Austin has appeared on radio and television talking about wartime history and regularly researches and writes for magazines, newspapers, journals and websites. He was a volunteer fieldworker for the Defence of Britain archaeology project, is a member of the Pillbox Study Group and fundraises for the Royal British Legion. He is a founder member of Leicestershire Home Guard Remembrance, a small re-enactment group, that displays Home Guard equipment and memorabilia at local 1940's events, in memory of 18 Leicestershire Home Guards killed on duty.
Austin's first book, 'British Anti-Invasion Defences 1940-1945: The Pillbox Study Group Handbook' was published in 2004.
During the course of research for his next book, 'To The Last Round: The Leicestershire & Rutland Home Guard 1940-1945', Austin uncovered an inland Auxiliary Unit type organisation called Shock Sections, set up to defend the Beaumanor Hall Y-Service Intercept Station.
Austin is currently writing a book about Leicestershire's ARP/Civil Defences versus the Luftwaffe air raids, a sequel to his previous book, To The Last Round.

Austin has been studying Auxiliary Units for the past 20 years and is currently researching other WW2 British anti-invasion/anti-occupation resistance units that operated parallel to the Auxiliary Units. 

Austin J Ruddy's Books

 

Owen Sheers - Wales

Owen Sheers was born in Fiji in 1974 and brought up in Abergavenny, South Wales. He was educated at King Henry VIII comprehensive, Abergavenny and New College, Oxford. Owen has won the Eric Gregory Award and the 1999 Vogue Young Writer’s Award. His first collection of poetry, The Blue Book (Seren, 2000) was short-listed for the Welsh Book of the Year and the Forward Prize Best 1st Collection 2001. Owen has also written for Radio, TV and newspapers.

Owen’s first novel about the Auxiliary Units, Resistance (Faber, 2008) won a 2008 Hospital Club Creative Award and was short-listed for the Writers Guild Best Book Award. Resistance is translated into nine languages. Owen’s recent collaboration with composer Rachel Portman, The Water Diviner’s Tale, an oratorio for children, was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms 2007. Owen was a 2007 Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library. He currently divides his time between New York and Wales. You can read more about Owen's Auxiliary related book here. 

 

Will Ward

In 1995 Will became Aux Units coordinator for the Defence of Britain Project, mostly as he lived just up the road from Duxford and had an interest in the Home Guard. Many good friendships and much information came from this, not all of which made it to the DoB database. It was clear there was more to rediscover and when John Warwicker stood down, Will took over he editorial role of the BROM newsletter, trying to include bits and pieces of research as they appear. Will see's CART as the electronic embodiment of the DoB cooperative ethos and BROM collection roles combined. He is  a great believer in the share to gain principle of research, but has limited free time and lots of hobbies means he may be slow to reply if you get in touch!



Coleshill House, Coleshill, Mabel Stranks, Highworth, Highworth Post Office, Colonel Gubbins, Auxiliary Units, Churchill's secret army, Special Operations Executive (SOE), Home Guard, The Countryman's Diary-1939, Peter Fleming, Ian Fleming, Pleydell-Bouveries, Sir Thomas Freake, Sir Henry Pratt, guerrilla warfare