Reading in the Great War 1917-1919 by David Bilton

[Moonraker]

This is Volume Two, describing the town of Reading, Berkshire, in the latter part of the Great War.

 

My review of Volume One

 

Though the bibliography lists some 35 other sources, Volume Two does read as if it's a summary of the four local newspapers, with a great number of statistics (such as the incremental weekly wage-rates for boys at a biscuit factory) and detailed tramway receipts, together with comprehensive digests

of court sessions (often involving minor offences).

 

There are many references to precise local addresses (Cue for me to bore one acquaintance by telling him "Did you know that in 1917 someone four doors away from your house hit someone in the same street?").

 

The book has some good material on strikes in 1918, Peace celebrations and the funeral of a German PoW, plus photographs of  the RAF training facilites in the town.

 

Though there's an account of a sports day at the remount depot at Arborfield four miles from Reading, I was a bit disappointed that there was nothing about the one at Purley, just over the borough boundary. And there was little about the railways, despite Reading being an important station.

 

Being full of facts & stats, the book is useful as a research tool, rather than being an interesting read for relatively casual readers.

 

The two volumes comprise 496 pages and, with Reading's population in 1911 being 75,000, I'll leave others to decide whether that's a bit much for such readers. (The Pen & Sword Great War book about Salisbury in the war ran to 192 pages; the city had a population of 21,000. The Torquay title had 176 pages, albeit quite a few about Torquinians serving overseas; the town had a population of 38,000.)

 

(David's books were pre-empted by Berkshire in the Great War which had some "fleshy" material about the Reading locality.)

 

Moonraker

Edited 22 August , 2016 by Moonraker