Remembering Major Tonie Holt, Battlefield Guru, Author, and Friend

Tonie Holt with a Partial Stack of Major and
Mrs. Holt's Guidebooks

Major Tonie Holt died of a stroke at age 91 on 5 September, and his funeral was held last Saturday 5 October. In this tribute to him, I would like to share some of the great contributions he made to the industry he substantially founded, to the study and appreciation of military history, and for heightening the recognition of the sacrifices made by the participants in those conflicts.

During my career leading battlefield tour groups in Europe, I was able to make friends with the leading figures and innovators in the business, Tonie and Valmai Holt. The founder of my parent company, Valor Tours, the late Bob Reynolds, had collaborated with them over the years.  When I arrived on the scene as Valor's World War One specialist, they took me under their wing, answering my questions and feeding me ideas for my tour presentations and publications. Twice they went way out of their way to visit Bob and me on the Somme and at Omaha Beach. Those were truly happy experiences.

This Was an Easter Greeting from Valmai and Tonie

Tonie Holt was born 10 December 1932 in Portsmouth, Great Britain.  A graduate of Sandhurst Military College, he was commissioned in the Royal Engineers and in 1958 met his life love and partner in all things, Valmai. After service overseas, Tonie moved on from the army and the husband-wife team began collaborating along parallel tracks in publishing and travel.  

In the 1970s, things got started with their collection of postcards from the First World War, which became Picture Postcards of the Golden Age: A Collector’s Guide. Then came Till the Boys Come Home: The Picture Postcards of the First World War and The Best of Fragments from France by Captain Bruce Bairnsfather. Like many of the Holts’ subsequent publications, these have rarely been out of print. The Holts did everything in their power to encourage and support families that wished to make pilgrimages to the sites where their families had served. Whenever possible, they visited Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries and memorials and encouraged veterans and their families to attend remembrance services such as the Menin Gate on 11 November each year, to keep alive what they regarded as the true spirit of Armistice Day. They eventually became advisors to the Royal British Legion on such matters. The next step was to see it was all done right was to start their own company.

Honoring One of the Fallen at Tyne Cot

With the founding of Major & Mrs Holt’s Battlefield Tours in the 1980s, Tonie and Valmai became the most prominent business in the world in their niche for the next decade and a half. Their excursions became well known for the professionalism of the tour leaders and the smoothness of the operations. In the late ‘90s, they sold their company and resumed writing again. In 1998 came My Boy Jack? The Search for Kipling's Only Son. This was followed by Poets of the Great War (2001), and In Search of a Better 'Ole: A Biography of Captain Bruce Bairnsfather (2008). In between producing these titles and afterward, the Holts published numerous high-quality guides to the battlefields of Europe back to the Crimean War. 

On a personal level, whether through email or in person, Tonie and Valmai have simply radiated generosity with their work and have never touted their many achievements. Over the years, I've learned they have frequently gone far out of their way to support other individuals and organizations in the name of making the study of military history more interesting and more moving. Some, I've only learned of by reading Tonie's recent obituaries. In closing, I would like share a list some of these activities (hardly comprehensive, of course). These include:

• The campaign to save “Toc H” (Talbot House) in Poperinge

• Preserving the Lochnagar mine crater as a memorial

• The creation of a museum at Pegasus Bridge, Normandy

• Enhancing the Christmas Truce and Bairnsfather sites at Plug Street in Flanders

• Working with the Royal British Legion to fund visits of war widows and ex-POWs to travel overseas to pay their respects to their family members and comrades

Thanks for all you've done and rest in peace, Tonie.

Mike Hanlon

(Note: I drew a lot on Tonie's obituaries in The Telegraph and from the Western Front Association for this piece.)