Just in

Articles by Henry Elkins

Avatar photo
About Henry Elkins

A keen researcher of family ancestors, Henry will be reporting on the centenary of World War One. More Posts

The Sandham Chapel

Yesterday in the company of Alice Mansfield and Douglas Heath I visited the Stanley Spencer chapel in Burghclere, Newbury. For a number of reasons I was underwhelmed. First the chapel itself seems more a modern crematorium more than a spiritual place. Second, it had a rather confused gestation. The [...]

October 25, 2018 // 0 Comments

Marking the Centenary

The the centenary next month of the end of the conflict sometimes described by those alive at the time and/or both shortly afterwards as ‘the war to end all wars’ – and otherwise generally known as either ‘The Great War’ or ‘First World War’ – is [...]

October 20, 2018 // 0 Comments

Paris Echo/Sebastian Faulks

Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong made a huge impression on me as a First World War novel. It was well researched, moving, with a powerful story. I have never found his subsequent novels matched this. He is nonetheless an author with a wide and loyal readership up there with Julian Barnes and Ian [...]

October 2, 2018 // 0 Comments

Aiming off …

Earlier this week I went to a showing of the new ‘feature’ documentary Spitfire, made by Altitude Films, produced by Mark Stuart and directed by David Fairhead and Ant Palmer, in a small art-house style cinema screening at Chichester in West Sussex. As a small boy in the 1950s and beyond I [...]

August 24, 2018 // 0 Comments

To 1944 and back

This may sound a degree absurd from someone in their sixties with a general interest in military history but last week I made my first-ever research trip to Normandy as a member of a small touring group spending five days ‘doing’ the D-Day Landings and elements of the 1944 Allied campaign to [...]

July 8, 2018 // 0 Comments

France :A History from Gaul to de Gaulle / John Julius Norwich

I always have a lot of respect for writers of non fiction whose preparation involves a lot of research and who can nonetheless produce a final work that is concise. Norman Stone wrote a brilliant short history of the First World War, Neal McGregor a superb but short history of Germany and now John [...]

July 3, 2018 // 0 Comments

A recce in France

Over the past three decades, as an amateur enthusiast without significant expert in the subject, I have done a good deal of military history research in all the usual places – not least in Belgium/France, Italy and Gallipoli (WW1) and in France, Belgium and Portugal (the Duke of Wellington at [...]

June 16, 2018 // 0 Comments

Around and around

I have just returned from a stay with a pal of forty years and more, a far more well-read and sociable cove than me. It was a fascinating experience as I knew it would be. I’ve rarely read much purely for pleasure, which he does on practically a daily basis and I admire him for it. Instead I have [...]

June 2, 2018 // 0 Comments

Getting it right, but also across …

In July, with four others. I am scheduled to take part in an (unguided) WW2 battlefield tour of Normandy. Actually in the interests of  accuracy I ought perhaps to qualify the term ‘unguided’: one of our number is an officially-accredited WW1 tour guide and all us are veterans of [...]

May 30, 2018 // 0 Comments

1 … 7 8 9 10 11 … 18

Copyright © 2024 The National Rust | Design by Premonition