Steve Williams Talks

D Troop 519 Battery (Essex Yeomanry) Royal Horse Artillery, North Africa 1943

Whilst doing research on my family tree (and for a new talk ‘Who do you think I am?’), my sister supplied ‘lost’ details of my father’s Army service in the Second World War.

Photographs of him with the 8th Army in the desert of North Africa (1942 – 43) and in Italy (1944 – 45) have now been donated to the Essex Yeomanry website – see http://www.essex-yeomanry.org.uk/history/picture-gallery-1921-to-1969.html

Gunner Charles Williams served in tanks with the Royal Artillery and with the 519th (Essex Yeomanry) Battery, 104th Royal Horse Artillery in the latter part of the War.

The coach trip to Ypres for Remembrance Day, in conjunction with Rossendale Travel, is fully booked with 48 passengers making the four day trip to Belgium in November.

It will be repeated in 2011, although a price has yet to be confirmed.

Using the format of the popular BBC TV programme ‘Who do you think you are?’ I will be adding a new talk to my 2011 programme entitled ‘Who do you think I am?’.

The illustrated talk covers research into my own family tree, tracing my roots back to the Huguenots in France and includes a Yorkshire wool merchant, a Victorian publican, several policemen, a Bolton tram driver, a soldier killed on the Somme in 1916 and a relative who allegedly went down on the RMS Titanic.

Steve Williams Talks Brochure 2011

Thiepval Memorial

Bookings are being taken for a short coach trip I have organised to the Somme battlefield over the late May Bank Holiday next year.

The four day trip from east and Central Lancashire will visit all the major sites and memorials on the Somme, including the front-line trenches held by the Accrington and Chorley Pals near the village of Serre during 1916. I have changed the hotel in Arras to one which provides a full ‘English’ breakfast, so the 3 * Mecure has replaced the Holiday Inn Express on the itinerary; the cost of the four day trip remains the same at just £219 per person sharing a twin / double room and cabin on the ferry.

A PDF brochure about the trip can be downloaded here.

My talk about the First World War through different eyes is proving very popular, receiving seven bookings between now and November 2011.

Whilst aimed at ladies groups, it is proving as popular with mixed audiences.