On Thursday 15th October at the University of Kent, Professor Mark Connelly interviewed the celebrated First World War historian Martin Middlebrook on his long career researching the events of 1914-1918.
After making a trip to the Somme battlefields in the late 1960s, Martin Middlebrook was inspired to research further the men who fought in that great battle. The result was The First Day on the Somme which was published in 1971 and is widely regarded as a seminal account of the ‘blackest day in the history of the British army’. The work explored the events of 1 July 1916 through newly-released primary sources and the personal stories of hundreds of ordinary soldiers. Since then, Martin Middlebrook has published numerous other works dealing with key moments in the First and Second World Wars and has also written two books about the 1982 Falklands Conflict after carrying out interviewing visits both to the Falklands itself and to Argentina. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and was appointed as a Knight of the Order of the Belgian Crown in 2004. In 2014 he carried out a speaking tour to the cities of eastern Canada.
During this interview, Martin Middlebrook discussed the family history that sparked his interest in the First World War, the process of conducting interviews with dozens of First World War veterans, and his experiences as a battlefields guide. You can listen to the interview here:
