Here a compilation of stupid things library consultants have said to me in solidarity with library pals at Lambeth Libraries where genius consultants has decided that a qualified head of library service post isn't really essential.
Nick Jenkins
@nickjhistorian.bsky.social
Journalist and historian, specialising in the First World War and its aftermath. Especially its aftermath (book on the way). Yorkshire, France, Craven Cottage. Used to have a cat. Now I have a grandson.
Isn't it odd that we tut-tut about people leaving their marks on ancient buildings - but when that graffiti is from the 19th century, or earlier, we find it quaint and charming? This is from the cellar of the chateau de Mareuil, one of the four great baronies of Périgord.
Many have visited Oradour-sur-Glane but fewer know of the martyred village of Maillé, where 124 residents were murdered by the SS on August 25, 1944. Victims included 48 children. The village was later shelled, destroying 52 out of 60 homes. Unlike Oradour, it was later rebuilt.
The Scottish Veterans Garden City Association was founded in 1915 to provide homes for ex-servicemen. It's still operating as Veterans Housing Scotland. This gatepost leads to eight homes built for war veterans in Pitlochry, in Perthshire.
On this day in 1903, a Czech Jewish woman was born. On the 7 May 1942 she was deported to Theresienstadt with her mother and on the 9 May 1942 to Sobibór where they were most probably murdered on arrival. Her name was Anna Deutschová Please support @sobibor.org
This morning we went into our 12th century village church in France for the first time. It is usually locked, but today was the funeral of the oldest resident of our little hamlet. The Panazols have lived here for generations, and there, of course, was their family name on the memorial.
When cinemas boomed in the early 20th century, they were often given exotic names. Alhambra is one of my favourites. There's a theatre in Bradford that was built as a music hall, but this Alhambra is in Keswick, in the Lake District.
I suspect that very few people rushing past Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens take much notice of this statue of Wellington. But it was paid for by the people of Manchester. I wonder how many would put up the cash for a politician's statue these days?
It might seem hard to believe, but until 17 years ago there were still Second World War prisoner of war huts on Peckham Rye common in south London.
Another reminder that the people of France are no strangers to conflict. Panels on three sides of this monument list the many men from the small town of Nontron who died in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.
We’re about 100 miles, as the crow flies, from Cap Ferret and the French fires - but we woke up today to smoke and the smell of burning.
“…For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.” Kubla Khan, completed 1797, published 1816; by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English Romantic poet, died #OTD 1834. Portrait by Washington Allston, 1814 National Portrait Gallery London
Some war memorials can be seen from miles around, while others hide in plain sight. This memorial to the Machine Gun Corps (erected just before the following war) is at the top of the steps on the front of Albert town hall, in the Somme, and is easily missed.
Then and Now The Little Street, Delft c.1658, painted by Johannes Vermeer; now identified by archival research as 40-42 Vlamingstraat, Delft (the home of Vermeer’s aunt). It was photographed (right) in 2017 See below: @rijksmuseum.bsky.social
All over northern France are reminders that the First World War was not the only calamity to hit the region. The Somme is synonymous with 1914-18, but it was also on the front line between 1939 and 1945.
Local war memorials in France can take many forms - from the grandiose to the humble.
There are some rooms (the dining room in Haworth Parsonage where the Bronte sisters wrote is another) that make you stand in wonder at what once happened there. This is Alan Turing's office at Bletchley Park... what extraordinary things went on in this ordinary-looking space?
The German immigrant city of Berlin, in Ontario, Canada, changed its name to Kitchener because of First World War anti-German feeling in 1916. This bust of Kaiser Wilhelm 1 was thrown in the lake. It was rescued but later stolen - and it hasn't been seen since.
One thing that makes Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries special is that each one is different. What makes Railway Hollow, on the Somme, different is the lack of flowers. The land was, and is, too prone to flooding for the usual planting. As you can see in the gateway.
One blessing of living in the UK is that we don't generally get to see a lot of these signs on street corners.
Cities are often known for one industry, so when that industry dies, the city struggles. But sometimes they just develop. Angouleme was a printing city, but it reinvented itself as the capital of comic-books, a popular medium in France. That led to it becoming a city of murals.
The town of Albert, in the Somme, was totally wrecked in the First World War. After the war, it was helped in its recovery by "godmothers" (marraines): Bordeaux in France, Birmingham in England, and Tien Tsin in China.
I expect you've heard of nominative determinism? It seems poor Paul never stood a chance.
Les Forces françaises de l’intérieur (FFI) was a Resistance group that played a key role in the liberation of France from the Nazis. Many members paid with their lives - including 19-year-old André.
"They were without uniforms and without arms. They were martyred and shot." All over south west France there are memorials like this one in Ribérac to the civilian victims of the Nazis in 1944.
Too hot? We have just the solution. Find yourself a medieval guild hall with a garden that has an outside cafe with parasols. It also helps if the cafe does iced coffees and a selection of cakes. You are welcome. 😎
Beware the hot weather… Alain de Moneys, who once owned our French house, set off for a local village fête in the hot summer of 1870. The day would end in disaster: he would be dead, after being tortured, and Hautefaye would forever be known as the Village of Cannibals. /1
Historic building wrecked in major blaze on Edinburgh's Princes Street. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Historic building wrecked in major blaze on Edinburgh's Princes Street
Firefighters are still on the scene of the blaze which broke out in the early hours at the old Debenhams.
bbc.co.uk
So many Sheffield men died on the first day of the Battle of the Somme that when this memorial was unveiled at Serre in 1923, it was said that “among the most pathetic incidents of the proceedings were the march past of the small number of survivors”.
