'Forgotten Soldiers' is, by any criteria, a high quality book in terms of research, penmanship and production.

Stephen, a reporter with BBC Northern Ireland, became fascinated with the controversial topic as far back as 1992 and has followed through on his initial awakening to the subject with several TV documentaries.

During the course of his ongoing 'contact' with the long running saga, Stephen became acutely aware of the depth of feeling on the issue, meeting campaigners and hearing the arguments for and against on numerous occasions.

As a student of the Great War myself, I found Stephen's work to be highly informative and well worthy of a place on any military history enthusiast's bookshelf.

A total of 28 Irish soldiers were executed during the First World War for a variety of offences.

Drawing upon war diaries, court martial papers and interviews with veterans and family members, he explains, in highly readable style, how these men met their deaths.

The book is also a modern day chronicle of how the Irish SAD campaign brought pressure on governments and won the battle for hearts and minds on this topic.

Born in Cheshire in 1965 , Stephen moved with his family to Ballymena in 1966.

The youngest of four children, he attended Ballymena Academy Prep., Ballymena Academy and Ballymena Technical college.

He completed his O levels at the Academy and then went to the 'Tech' to study for an OND in Business Studies.

After Technical College, he went wto Northampton in England in 1983 to continue Business Studies where he became involved in student journalism and then trained to be a journalist in 1988.

His career began as a freelance football reporter in Portsmouth and continued with the BBC in 1989 as a reporter with BBC Radio Leeds.

He returned to NI in 1991 as a reporter with BBC Radio Ulster

In 1992 he became interested in the Shot at Dawn cases and made a radio documentary for Radio Ulster. Stephen became a television reporter in 1993 and started work with Inside Ulster, the long-running flagship teatime news programme.

He joined the 'Spotlight' team in 1994 and began making documentaries.

During ten years at Spotlight he made around a hundred documentaries, winning a European Journalism award in 1995 for investigative journalism and a Royal Television Society award in 2001 for an investigation into a controversial killing in London.

Stephen was BBC Northern Ireland London Correspondent between 2001 and 2003 based at Westminster before his return to Spotlight where in 2005 he made a television documentary for BBC NI Spotlight about the Irish Shot at Dawn cases.

In 2005 Stephen was the Northern Ireland Journalist of the Year.

The father of three is now living in County Down. Parents Ron and Josephine Walker still live In Ballymena.