Phil Guest passed away on Sunday 5 May. He was one month short of his 100th birthday. Philip was a longstanding member of The Western Front Association.
Joanna Legg shares her memories of him.
'This photo was taken at Point 110, Fricourt, on a very hot day during our Somme Memorial Walk tour in July 1992.
Throughout the 1990s Philip was a regular in our team of guides for Flanders Tours with my father Graham Parker. He enjoyed being known as ‘Guest Presenter Guest’ !
Philip was a guide with us on many tours to the 1916 and 1918 Somme battlefields and to Ors. His research into the Manchester Regiment was one of his special areas of study. Another was to discover the military experiences in specific battlefield locations for Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves.
During the 1990s he took family members, including Peter Owen, WFA members, historians and authors to many previously under researched and undiscovered places on the battlefields of the Western Front.
His hilarious and clever storytelling as an after dinner speaker was hugely enjoyed by WFA members over the years at seminars, meetings and on WFA tours. Philip became a dear, dear friend to my family and we will miss him very much.'