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Articles by Henry Elkins

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About Henry Elkins

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

Sleep in Peace Tonight/James MacManus

All the reading on the National Rust these days appears to be on the Second World War. I have just finished “Sleep in Peace Tonight” and could not commend it too highly. It is fiction based on fact on the visit of President Roosevelt’s friend and envoy Harry Hopkins to Britain in [...]

February 19, 2015 // 0 Comments

In Love and War by Alex Preston

Alex Preston’s third novel In Love and War is impressive. Its the factional story of Esmond Lowndes’ stay in Florence from 1937 to 1945. He is the son of British Union of Fascist leader Sir Lionel Lowndes and, after being sent down from Cambridge after a sex scandal, he goes to Florence [...]

January 20, 2015 // 0 Comments

Re-heating old stories

My apologies for returning again to the subject of supposedly ‘new’ historical revelations – specifically my objection to them being used to gain publicity for new books (or new editions of old books) etc. –  again, but I am minded to do so by a letter that appears in The [...]

December 31, 2014 // 0 Comments

Could do better

There is a film coming out shortly – Testament Of Youth – a new screen version of Vera Brittain’s memorable tale of her life and loves during WW1. As part of the publicity surrounding its launch, a good deal of media attention has been given to a new  biography of her – [...]

December 28, 2014 // 3 Comments

A chance discovery

By choice, my family and I are having a quiet Christmas – both my wife’s and my own mother having passed away in the past twelve months. However, it was pleasing to receive a “Have you seen this?” email from my brother yesterday, linking me to a piece by Graham Fraser [...]

December 25, 2014 // 0 Comments

The San Martino Trust

One of the more neglected theatres of war in the Second World War was the Italian campaign of 1943. Italy surrendered in September 1943 but he Nazis fought on in their place relentlessly. There were some 60,000 allied soldiers in Prisoner of War camps. Their Italian guards fled. Rather surprisingly [...]

November 21, 2014 // 0 Comments

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Well fancy that!

At the end of a fairly hectic weekend, yesterday for want of anything better to do I prepared a light supper and settled down to watch BBC1’s Countryfile programme which was being transmitted at 6.30pm after the early evening news. It turned out to be a World War One special, with three of the [...]

November 10, 2014 // 0 Comments

Remembering the fallen

Yesterday I had been invited to a small launch party in the West Stand of the RFU’s Twickenham Stadium to unveil a brand new oil painting by Shane Record, based upon a photograph of the England rugby team that played against France at Stade Colombes in Paris on 13th April 1914. It is intended to [...]

November 8, 2014 // 0 Comments

Remembering a WW2 fighting man

Yesterday I joined my brothers and father at a restaurant in Fulham for an occasional lunch with one of my father’s old school mates D (they first met at public school in the early 1940s) who has been a lifelong friend of the family. Some time ago D’s wife wisely begged leave not to attend [...]

November 5, 2014 // 0 Comments

Well I suppose it all makes sense

If someone didn’t invent the theory first at some point over the last 6,000 years – the period during which, I was once informed by someone who should know, human civilisation has existed – in my previous existence as a fictional blogger I came up with the concept that reality was in fact a [...]

August 16, 2014 // 0 Comments

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