"Reading in the Great War 1914-1916" by David Bilton

[Moonraker]

At last this book has been published, after having appeared on Pen & Sword's list early last year and with a succession of intended publication dates.

See this thread.

Running to 264 pages (including a 13-page chronology of the war during the period it covers, the book is longer than other titles I've seen in P & S's "... in the Great War" series - and it covers the war only up to the end of December 1916.

It's very well written, though the copy editor should have picked up on a number of military sets of initials that would mean little to the average reader: "4th NF", "MEF" and "RS", for example. It's also copiously illustrated with photographs taken from contemporary newspapers. (Some of these are a bit dark: I wondered if they could have been "lightened" using a simple photo-editing program?)

Most of the content has also come from local papers, with dozens of exact addresses being quoted that still exist. The author has opted not to write much about the overseas activities of the Royal Berkshire Regiment and Berkshire Yeomanry. To do so would have made the book longer; subjectively - as I've mentioned in another review - I prefer books such as these to concentrate on the Home Front.

There are some good examples of local "spy hysteria" and of fatalities to soldiers guarding local railway lines.

Local VC winner Trooper Potts gets six lines and two photographs, and there's half a page on the RFC schools that have recently been discussed here on the GWF. Perhaps there'll be more - and details of Purley Remount Depot - in any second volume.

I was struck by some of the penalties imposed by local courts: six months' hard labour for a man who molested a nine-year-old girl - his ninth such offence; six weeks' hard labour for stealing a bicycle lamp; and one month's hard labour for someone so enthusiastic to enlist that he didn't reveal a hip condition and had to be discharged after a month. His crime: wasting time and costing the country money - and the sentence was reduced because he had a wife and three children.

The cover price of the book is £12.99.

[Knotty]

Thanks for the pointer, as a Berkshire man should make an interesting read

John

[Steven Broomfield]

Oh READING. I thought you meant READING. Silly me.

[David Filsell]

Threw me too!

[Moonraker]

There is a

Volume Two

due out on June 30.

Moonraker

[David Ridgus]

Oh READING. I thought you meant READING. Silly me.

I've lived in the town for all my 59 years and I did a double take too. Sir John Betjeman was once fooled the other way when he thought a book entitled "The Pleasures of Reading" was a tourist guide for the town when it was in fact extolling the virtues of books

David

[Moonraker]

I'm now reading (no pun intended, Steven and David) Volume Two, covering 1917-1919 and shall review it in due course.

 

Moonraker

[John_Hartley]

On 11/04/2016 at 12:04, Moonraker said:

I was struck by some of the penalties imposed by local courts: six months' hard labour for a man who molested a nine-year-old girl

It's a pattern you'll see repeated across newspapers of the time. Violence towards children and women often carried very light sentences in comparision with what would be the norm today.