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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

Village of Secrets

Twenty or so years ago I met an interesting New York lawyer in Paris who scarcely conformed with the venal prototype of that profession. He had come to Paris not just to join a European law group, but as part of a charity called Christians who saved Jews. Their  mission was to trace those who [...]

July 7, 2014 // 0 Comments

Sometimes things make you pause and think

Last night I returned to the UK after an exhausting three-day visit to France and Belgium. I had been overdue a trip to Flanders, but this one was deliberately organised to coincide with, and take in, an annual ceremony at Verrières, about 25 kilometres south-east of Poitiers, celebrating a [...]

July 5, 2014 // 0 Comments

An historic day

Today a number of commemorative ceremonies will take place in Normandy, the biggest of them attended by tens of world leaders and dignitaries, in honour of the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings. I have three personal second-hand memories of that fateful invasion to share. Firstly, in the early [...]

June 6, 2014 // 0 Comments

A piece worth reading

It was inevitable that 2014 would see the beginning of a four-year media blitz in honour of the centenary of the First World War. So far, based only upon those I have come across, there have been many novel and insightful items – including contributions from ordinary members of the [...]

May 5, 2014 // 0 Comments

You win some, you lose some

As a senior citizen, I’m surrounded by reminders of the vagaries of growing old. I live with a range of aches and pains – both long-term and random – that arrive and then depart without ceremony. When I meet with pals I haven’t seen for ages, they tend to look very different [...]

May 2, 2014 // 0 Comments

Is our project any good (and P.S. what is it anyway?)

For nearly four years now, with others, I have been working upon a small WW1 research project based around an event that took place behind British lines on the Western Front in the spring of 1915. At the outset, the original fantasy was that the fruits of these labours – assuming, of course, that [...]

April 22, 2014 // 0 Comments

The BBC catches a crab

A side-product of having a hobby interest is that, however weak your understanding of it in the vast scheme of such things, you do tend to be able to spot or hear a factual mistake when one occurs. Having been researching First World War soldiers on and off for over twenty years, I have acquired [...]

April 7, 2014 // 0 Comments

A trip to Flanders

Yesterday, after about eight months of excuses – both genuine and spurious – as to why I could not return to the continent in furtherance of my current WW1 research project, I finally made it under the Channel to northern France and Belgium. In many respects, given the frequency with which I [...]

April 2, 2014 // 0 Comments

The baggage of old age

Becoming frustrated with the inefficiencies, stupidities, red tape, cock-ups and lack of common sense of politicians … the civil service … local government … tradesmen … just anyone and everyone who ever has authority and/or control of something that you want/need or are entitled to … is [...]

March 20, 2014 // 0 Comments

Worthy recollections of WW1

In the early 1960s, the BBC made a documentary series called The Great War. Last week, on BBC2, as part of its WW1 centenary commemorations, the corporation put out a programme called I Was There: The Great War Interviews, featuring WW1 veterans talking about their experiences, many of them coming [...]

March 19, 2014 // 0 Comments

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