Battlefield Wanderers

A collection of military history and battlefields by Midge Carter and Trish Woodman

Welcome to Battlefield Wanderers. Here you will find an extensive range of videos made by Midge Carter.

Midge had a life-long passion for the history of the Anglo-Boer and Zulu wars at the turn of the 19th century. The stories of heroism and tragedy are retold from the graveyards and memorials, many of them left forgotten and overgrown.

Midge died in July 2016 but Trish has assembled this website to establish a blog for fellow enthusiasts around the world but also to ensure that the wealth of research material is not lost. Indeed, anyone is free to make use of the videos, simply credit this website and Midge as the source.

Trish patiently listened to Midge’s stories and adventures, researched the background, collated the available photographs and wrote their book We Wander the Battlefields which is also available.

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We Wander the BattlefieldsReminiscences of well known personalities and military history meanderings in South Africa gathered over more than sixty years, Matthew (Midge) Carter shares his passion for South Africa and its battlefields, for obscure gravesites and monuments around the world and recounts delightful anecdotes of exciting opportunities few could match in a lifetime.

Co-authored by Trish Woodman, segments captured in photographs are simple but descriptive words outline the stories behind ‘just a name on a stone’, many inscriptions translated from Afrikaans.

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South Africa

Emily and Thomas Houston with Errol and Don. 1907.

America

Soldiers’ National Monument

Asia

The setting for more recent Gurkha graves in 2011

UK and Europe

Delville Wood Memorial

Naval and maritime

St. Paul's Cathedral Melbourne

Forts and blockhouses

Harrismith, Eastern Cape

Battlefield Wanderers

Trish Woodman and Matthew (Midge) Carter
Trish Woodman and Matthew (Midge) Carter

Although Google can help us all to find photos of almost anything one might be interested in, there are still many places, people, etc that we have never heard about so don’t research. Here are some photos of battlefields, cemeteries, monuments, graves and so on, that we have found interesting in our wandering.

Photos and video clips are of countries and wars other than Southern Africa, which was our main focus in our book, We Wander the Battlefields. We have added links back to events, people and places referred to in the  book. We realised that we had scores of photos of military interest that we had taken in the USA, France, Belgium, UK, Gibraltar and etc. that other people  may find useful. We know that photos of monuments are readily available, but the background information or inscription is quite often not.

Even if you usually study just one military period, we hope that you will  discover some new and fascinating facts among the following collection. There is never an end to learning.

Midge always has his video camera with him and has produced some interesting glimpses of the battlefields we’ve visited. These were meant for us, of course, and we never thought we would want to make them available to other people, but not everyone is able to  visit these places for themselves.

The quality of both Midge’s filming and the cameras have improved over  the years. For one thing, the cameras now are tiny compared with his original camera. We almost hoped  that someone would steal that so that we didn’t have to carry it anymore!

Unfortunately, as a tourist, it is impossible to control the movements and voices of other tourists who constantly intrude, usually in an irritating  way. It is amazing how loudly a small child can speak!