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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

In Our Time/Wilfred Owen

One of my favourite wireless programmes is In Our Time presented by Melvyn Bragg at 9-00 on Radio 4 every Thursday. The topic varies weekly and Bragg assembles a team of academics well-qualified to discuss it. Yesterday’s programme featured the World War poet Wilfred Owen. My connection with [...]

October 30, 2022 // 0 Comments

Getting it right beats how we’d like it to be

As a columnist on the Rust I am sometimes reminded of a conversation that I had eons ago with an elderly relative on the rather broad subject of which pastimes or subjects individuals take up as hobbies, interests and/or life-long obsessions and the reasons why they do. In these days of increased [...]

October 29, 2022 // 0 Comments

Rise of the Nazis/The Downfall

I watched my recording of the first part of this series yesterday. It’s a documentary in the modern mould: actors silently depicting the major personages; a young female historian from a diverse background. Heavyweight historian Sir Richard Evans presents it. It begins in 1944 with Adolf Hitler [...]

October 12, 2022 // 0 Comments

Act of Oblivion/Robert Harris

Critics have hailed Robert Harris’ latest novel as his best since Fatherland.   It’s historical fiction. Charles II, on being restored to the throne, issued a blanket pardon to all who fought for Parliament except those responsible for his father’s death known as the Regicides. Two such [...]

September 13, 2022 // 0 Comments

An Army at Dawn/The Day of Battle – Rick Atkinson

Army at Dawn and Day of Battle are the first two parts of the Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson which chronicle the American entrance and input in the Second World War. The first covers the Torch landings (1942) in North Africa, the second the Sicily and Mainland Italian campaign (1943-44). [...]

July 29, 2022 // 0 Comments

Two red lines – and that’s it!

I tested positive for Covid- 19 yesterday. It’s a strange feeling – after two years of having avoided Covid and (largely speaking) taken all reasonable precautions as per the Government and NHS advice etc. – to suddenly wake up one morning and find that one has succumbed to it. I have to be [...]

June 16, 2022 // 0 Comments

Resistance/Halik Kochanski

This is a detailed (too detailed in fact) account of the resistance movement in World War Two, principally in France, Norway, the Low Countries and Bohemia. Although the author provides an abundance of statistical information that is difficult to absorb, there is no glossary of the resistance [...]

June 1, 2022 // 0 Comments

Rise of the Nazis/BBC 4

Last night I watched the third and final part of the series Rise of the Nazis.    I was unimpressed. I watched years ago – and still have the box set – of The World at War and this programme falls way short of that. That series, narrated by Lawrence Olivier, called upon living [...]

March 1, 2022 // 0 Comments

Those were the Krays, my friend

Last night I watched the second part of an ITV documentary Secrets of the Krays on the Kray twins. My immediate reaction was that this all happened so long ago – their hey day was the late 1960s – and most of those on the programme were necessarily quite old now. The point was made that [...]

February 2, 2022 // 0 Comments

The Flying Prince (book review)

As someone who has penned the odd item intended for public consumption myself, not just my membership of the mythical “writers’ union” makes me generally wary of offering criticism of the efforts of my fellow authors and/or scribes. And so it is today with a degree of humility and trepidation [...]

December 26, 2021 // 0 Comments

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