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Nick Jenkins

@nickjhistorian.bsky.social
1K followers 756 following 357 posts

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.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 12h
If you visit the Somme, Ypres or Vimy Ridge, you can see sections of "preserved" First World War trenches. Head south to the St-Mihiel Salient, though, and you can spend hours wandering in the woods among trench systems that have hardly been touched since 1918.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Poilu (roughly translated as "hairy man") was an affectionate term for a French First World War soldier. All over France there are streets named after these soldiers.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The Hotel Regina in Saint-Palais-sur-Mer opened in 1932 and was requisitioned by the Germany army during the occupation of France. General de Gaulle visited after the Liberation in 1945. Today it is an apartment block and it is our home for tonight.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Maurice Blanchard - died for France, May 5, 1915. "The wind whispers his name in the heart of the Ailly wood."
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Sometimes a name just won't fit conveniently on a war memorial plaque.
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Ancestral Enquiries - Tony Smith 🌳 @ancestralenq.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The Grade 2 listed, Sam Smith Old Red Lion pub, Meadow Lane, Leeds which dates from the 19th century is to refurbished with work carried out on timber windows, external doors & building render. 👇 Leeds Sam Smith Old Red Lion pub to undergo repair work after reopening www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Leeds Sam Smith Old Red Lion pub to undergo repair work after reopening
The Tadcaster-based brewery applied to the council for listed building consent for the repair work.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I love an ancient doorway - and the 12th century church of Saint Pierre in Sers, Charente, has a particularly pleasing one (nice tower too).
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
About 720 Accrington Pals, from Lancashire, went into action from this position on the first day of the Battle of the Somme - 235 were killed and 350 injured in just half an hour. This is their memorial. Listen to Mike Harding's moving song about them, in the link below.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Duilio Donzelli (1882-1966) was an Italian sculptor who was forced out of Luxembourg in 1924 because of his Communist membership. He set up a studio in Lacroix-sur-Meuse, France, where he produced this remarkable war memorial, among others, later fleeing the Nazis in 1940.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The classical fountain in Lacroix-sur-Meuse was built in 1838 and restored in the 1920s - but it still shows clear signs of First World War damage.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The Voie Sacrée (Sacred Way) is the road that took troops and supplies to defend the vital city of Verdun in the First World War. The road is now numbered RD1916 in tribute to its vital role in that year, and since 1923 it has been marked every kilometre by one of these bornes.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Memorial debate after the First World War: should they be purely commemorative (eg a cross) or functional (such as a village hall)? The town of Holyoke, Massachusetts, went for the latter, providing a modern wash-house for the people of Loupmont, Meuse, in honour of US troops who died nearby.
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Blue Wave @votebiue.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Tell me this doesn’t give you chills. Japan opened the 12D theater. It is beyond your imagination.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The Tranchée de la Soif (Trench of Thirst), in the Meuse, France... in May 1915, troops of the French 172nd Infantry Regiment were cut off in a captured German trench after advancing too quickly. They held out for three days without food or water before finally surrendering.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Then and now... this IWM picture (October 2 1918) shows Brigadier-General John Vaughan Campbell addressing British troops who had crossed Riqueval bridge over the Saint-Quentin canal, breaking through the Hindenburg Line and helping to end the First World War. The scene today is far more peaceful.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
There are 5,590 German soldiers in this First World War cemetery in France - two to each cross. The graves that stand out, though, are those of the Jewish men who died for their German homeland.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Portsmouth raised money to help the ruined Somme village of Combles after the First World War. That didn't stop the residents of Combles taking the mickey out of the visiting dignitaries of Portsmouth in their village's theatrical revue. (Some knowledge of French required...)
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Impossible to imagine the pain of losing four sons to war. This window is in the post-First World War church in Metz-en-Couture, Pas-de-Calais, France. And there are five members of the Raingeval family on the village war memorial.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was descended from enslaved African-Americans but graduated from the Royal College of Music and became a popular composer. He tore up this last movement of his only symphony after it was criticised, but a fellow student stuck it back together.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Just an ordinary farmhouse in north Dordogne, but it was a dangerous place in 1944. That June, more than 1,000 Résistants passed through this arch to sign up for the RAC brigade, formed by Rodolphe Charles Cézard, which fought to liberate several cities across the region.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Kathleen Brown was sentenced to seven days solitary for throwing stones in Whitehall, London, in 1909. She returned home to Newcastle after release and was greeted by a big group of supporters at Central station, before giving a speech to a large crowd at the Haymarket.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
These blue plaques on houses in the Tynemouth area were part of an admirable project, presumably to mark the centenary of the First World War. Shame the URL link now takes you to an Indonesian cryptocurrency site.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Everyone knows of Horatio Nelson, but few remember Cuthbert Collingwood, his number two who took over at Trafalgar after his death. He was from Newcastle, and his statue at the mouth of the Tyne is monumental - flanked by four cannon from his Trafalgar ship, the Royal Sovereign.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
It probably needs a banana for scale to appreciate how small it is, but this military surcoat was worn by Jacob Astley as he led royalist troops at the Civil War Battle of Edgehill in 1642. He wore a breastplate over it as he ordered: "March on, boys!"
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Love this playful wallpaper in a National Trust property toilet. I suspect, though, that conservative NT members would hate it almost as much as explanations of how slavery paid for many historic houses.
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Hallie Rubenhold @hallierubenhold.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
RIP Polly Nichols.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, at the end of the Bank Holiday weekend - hence the crowds. It wasn't until the 1960s that the August Bank Holiday moved to the end of the month. And the man responsible for that move, in 1964, was future prime minister Ted Heath.
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London Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 29/08/2026
‘The miners said that if some pits really were uneconomic, they should shut. The owners wanted to make all pits profitable again by squeezing the workers.’ Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite on the general strike. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
lrb.co.uk
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite · An ’ell of an ’eadache: The General Strike
Between 4 and 12 May 1926, nearly three million workers – 20 per cent of the adult population – downed tools, and...
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Abdul El-Sayed @abdulelsayed.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
63 years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the first historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. They understood that equal economic and voting rights were the path to ending racial inequality in America.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Most people passing Fulham Broadway in London will have been unaware that this grand building was paid for by theatre boss Oswald Stoll to house First World War veterans. Most of it has now been sold to neighbouring Chelsea FC, with current veterans rehoused elsewhere.
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Yashar Ali 🐘 @yasharali.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
This morning, the Coldstream Guards at Buckingham Palace performed a tribute to Dolly Parton. The last time I remember the guards at the palace honoring the memory of an American entertainer was when they paid tribute to Aretha Franklin after she passed away.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
If you have time to kill at King's Cross or St Pancras, call in at the nearby British Library and visit its treasures exhibition. Shakespeare First Folio, Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence... and Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition sketch. Nobody expected that...
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
James II stayed in this house, Maison Bigarré in Ploermel, Brittany, in December 1690. I think the front door might have changed since then. The crescent over the door is apparently a bit of a mystery.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Then and now (but a bit closer to home)… the bottom of our road, in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, where large hats were much more in evidence in 1900.
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History and Heritage Yorkshire @handhyorkshire.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
🧵A church much loved by writer J B Priestly, St Michael and All Angels at Hubberholme in Wharfedale is worth visiting to see a rare surviving example of a Rood Loft. The loft and screen were installed as part of a reordering of the church in the 16th century.
All Angels at Hubberholme in Wharfedale is worth visiting to see a rare surviving example of a Rood Loft.  The loft and screen were installed as part of a reordering of the church in the 16th century.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Most British regional and national newspapers have been forced by falling circulations to downsize from their former grand head offices. Not so Ouest-France in Rennes, Brittany, the top-selling French daily paper. It still has a circulation of more than 750,000.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
The Monument of the Flame at Ouistreham - Sword Beach on D-Day 1944 - is on a former Atlantic Wall blockhouse and incorporates a French armoured turret from the Maginot Line. It commemorates French commandos and was unveiled by President Mitterrand in 1984.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
If you drive across northern France, you might notice some of the 1,146 Voie de la Liberté (Freedom Road) posts marking every kilometre of the route taken by liberating troops after D-Day in 1944. Photographing them, however, can be difficult as they are often beside busy roads!
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Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The 'fiddly and frustrating' work removing 10,000 coins from Giant's Causeway columns in Northern Ireland. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Giant's Causeway: 10,000 rock damaging coins removed from landmark
Conservationists remove the equivalent of 10,000 coins that had been wedged into the Giant's Causeway's pillars.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
An interesting doll museum exhibit in a French chateau that hosted wounded soldiers during the First World War. Surely never intended as a child's toy?
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
How old is your local post office? Have you even got a post office? I love this modern post office in a medieval building in Rennes, Brittany.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
There was an eclipse in 1919 too - and it proved Einstein's theory of relativity. While politicians were deciding the shape of the post-WW1 world in Paris, physicists were busy looking at the sky. www.bbc.com/reel/video/p...
bbc.com
The eclipse that proved Einstein right
On May 29, 1919, the sun disappeared for 6 minutes and 51 seconds, changing science forever.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I hate the word "iconic" unless it applies to a religious image - but I'm prepared to make a rare exception in this case.
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Merchant Adventurers’ Hall @merchantshallyork.org · 11/08/2026
Calling all arty people! Yes you with the easel and paints! Join us and Clavis Mentis in the Hall's garden for an arts session with a difference! Bring your own sketchbooks and favourite materials, find a comfortable spot and simply enjoy drawing outdoors.
We are looking at the Hall from a high vantage point over looking its secluded garden. It is a sunny day from a couple of years ago as the grass is green (not gold like today). The sun is shining on the Hall and people are sitting in the garden around chairs and tables.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
Love this poster in our kitchen (from the IWM) and we try to abide by it. Reminds me of an Alexei Sayle joke in a documentary from the 80s about the restrictive licensing laws that were still in place then: "Pubs have to close in the afternoon in case we lose the First World War."
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Brynley Heaven @brynleyheaven.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
For people interested in official signage, this has to be unusual. The MoD are engaging in a moral debate with their critics via Road Sign? Loving the 'tired reasonableness' on display
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
My great-grandfather William and his twin were reluctant soldiers (they appealed unsuccessfully against conscription). William clearly felt he was worth more for his work. Mind you, even for a Thames boatman, crossing the Channel in barges in WW1 must have been hazardous work.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
The Corderie Royal (royal rope factory) was built in the naval arsenal of Rochefort, west France, in 1666 on the orders of Louis XIV. At 347m - to allow longer ropes to be made - it was the longest industrial building in Europe until the 20th century.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Following on from yesterday's "then and now", here's the same Normandy boulangerie from a different angle, photographed in the aftermath of D-Day in 1944.
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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I love a "then and now". This is Courseulles-sur-Mer, Normandy, where Canadian troops went ashore on Juno Beach on D-Day. Amazingly, the 1944 shop is still a boulangerie today.
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