Wartime in Berkshire

Photographs of the 250th Reading Anti-Aircraft Battery R (TA) taken for Illustrated magazine in c.1940 show us a forgotten side of the Second Word War, with images of the men on and off duty: building defences, firing the anti-aircraft guns, and even asleep in bunks (D/EX2934).

Berkshire nurses 

We were fascinated by the memoir of Mary Macintyre, nee Fairbairn, a London girl who trained as a mental health nurse at Berkshire Mental Institution in the 1930s (D/EX3077).  She wrote about the training, and her own and fellow nurses’ private lives, and adds anecdotal colour to what can sometimes seem dry records.  As patients’ names were carefully anonymized we can make it available.  However, please be warned it includes some outdated language relating to mental illness and disabilities, and references to sexual activity and assault, violence and child abuse.  After her time at Fair Mile Mary she nursed in Surrey, including wounded soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk, and after the war continued her career in Canada.

We have also been given some photographs of nurses (and Father Christmas!) at Newbury District Hospital from Christmas 1964 (D/EX3076).

Women’s groups

We have catalogued the records of several branches of the Women’s Institute: Cookham, 1946-2919 (D/EX1925/96); Moneyrow Green, Bray, c.1980-2020 (D/EX1925/97); Riseley and Swallowfield, 1943-2019 (D/EX1925/98); Riseley Village, 1984-n.d. [21C] (D/EX1925/99); Cookham Evening, 1955-2006 (D/EX1925/100); and Loddon Green, 2002-2018 (D/EX1925/101). In 1960 the Cookham branch submitted a resolution to the national meeting of WIs for the Government to exercise more control over the use of toxic sprays in agriculture.  

In addition, we hold a number of charming scrapbooks compiled by local branches of the WI in 1965. We have received one more from Yattendon and Frilsham WI (D/EX2898). We have also received records of Burghfield Mothers’ Union, 1987-2008 (D/EX1480).  

Making baskets  

A small but interesting collection has been received for the Cook family of Reading, basket makers, 1818-20C(D/EX3091).  Thomas Cook, a Quaker, established the family business, Cook’s Basket, Brush and Cooperage in Reading in 1760. Most of the records relate to John Cook (1779-1842), and David John Cook (1828-1912).  

New for family history 

We have received the following registers:
Reading St Agnes: marriages, 1997-2019; banns, 1992-2016 (D/P167).

Parish records

We have also received other records from Reading St Agnes,1977-2023 (D/P177). Although it is not a complete series, we also now hold various copies of the parish magazine of Tilehurst St Michael, 1916-2024 (D/P132).