Proudly the longest running Battlefield Tour operations in Canada - having escorted Canadian Veterans & their families for over 30 years
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Diane Piuk
Meeting a Great War veteran in the late 90s changed her life and reignited her love of history.
Hearing personal stories from these men brought an insight into their lives as they coped with trench
warfare and they brought history to life.
In 1999 this passion took Diane and her husband Vic to move to the heart of the hauntingly beautiful
Somme battlefields where they opened a B&B and began to conduct battlefield tours. Their location is
on the former 1916 front line which was attacked on 1 st July 1916. Her tours always include stories
from the veterans she knew and she stood with as they described on the ground what happened to
them during the Great War.
One particular fascination is the research of a soldier to find out his history of where he served and to
try to pinpoint his location in battle especially his last known location before becoming a casualty.
Family history is a special interest.
Diane’s tours take her mainly to the Somme, Artois region and Flanders in Belgium.
Jo Hook
Jo is the daughter of a Second World War Veteran. Having worked for the Ministry of Defence in Hong Kong for four years Jo returned to England and joined the Territorial Army. She served for eighteen years in the Royal Signals and saw active service in Bosnia in 1995. Jo is also an accredited member of the Guild of Battlefield guides and achieved accreditation in 2010 and holds a Masters Degree in Military History. She has worked with the utube channel WW2TV and has also worked on the UK Channel Five series Secret History of World War 2 and is a current presenter on BattleguideVT. She has been a full time professional guide since 2004 covering both the First and Second World Wars.
Damien Stewart
Following a 20-year career as an Australian Police Officer, Damien completed master’s degrees in psychology and entered the Psychology profession as a solo, private practice Psychologist in 2014. In his practice, Damien has a special interest in working with current and ex-serving Police Officers and Military personnel suffering from the psychological effects of their profession. Damien has also served as the Convenor of the Australian Psychological Society’s Military and Emergency Services Interest Group.
Damien has had an interest in military history since he was a little boy and in 2018, he had the opportunity to complete a WWII tour of Poland and Germany. It was during this tour that Damien became captivated by the incredible story of WWII in Poland, including the occupation of Poland, the horror of the Holocaust, and the courageous resistance of the Poles. After returning to Poland many times after his initial visit in 2018, Damien decided to create Poland At War Tours as a way of honouring the many victims and heroes of this remarkable history.
Damien’s passion for the story of Poland during WWII has developed beyond the creation of Poland at War Tours. Damien has collaborated with Polish institutions to provide presentations on the effect of trauma on the Polish population post WWII. Damien is also pursuing a PhD on the experience of intergenerational trauma within the Polish and Polish Jewish population following WWII. Damien has also furthered his knowledge of the Holocaust by attaining two micro-credentials from Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Israel: “Antisemitism: From its origins to the present” and “Teaching the Holocaust”.
The ethos of Poland at War Tours is to honour victims, celebrate heroes, but most importantly never forget.
RECOMMENDED TOUR GUIDES
The right guide for your journey matters most. Explore with some of our favorite battlefield guides in the field, some of whom we've been working with for decades. You will also come across members of our full-time Canadian team in the guide profiles below.