The Mayor opens Wokingham’s 2014 Heritage Day, dedicated to the Great War Cententary.
Research into Wokingham’s fallen started in 2011 and after three years, the information was presented to the people on Sunday 14th September, 2014. We had also invited the descendants of 20 of the fallen and were lucky enough to receive 14 acceptances. The Town Council had themselves been preparing for this day since about December 2013, having laid out a basic plan even earlier. They successfully applied for a grant from the Lottery fund and contacted the parishes around the borough to discuss a number of opportunities. One idea came back about creating a trail for 20 memorials around Wokingham borough, which included brochures, stories and informational banners.
Mother and son, Mr Mark Bosher and Mrs Bosher proudly present the Death Penny given to the family following Thomas Bosher’s death at Mons in 1918
Along came Sunday and when the doors opened a steady trail of visitors began to arrive including a number of descendants, some we knew and others we didn’t. The Hall began to fill and fill and we realised that this was because whilst there was a steady inward flow, no one was leaving! The common focus of the war and the information which surrounded them encouraged people who didn’t know each other to enter into lively conversations about their ancestral discoveries and visits to the Western Front. Other long term residents were bumping into old friends they hadn’t seen for years and were delightedly talking about bygone days. There were children in the middle of the room playing table games, local history books for sale and The British Legion showing a bewitched audience just how hard it was to make poppies ! There was a full screen of this website and the map at the bottom of this page came in very handy when showing the visitors just where the men lived before and during the war. Some visitors even pulled up a chair to watch a film of nearly 400 photographs of the men from Wokingham who had died or survived.
Local Historian Trevor Ottlewski takes visitors on a tour of Wokingham.
Downstairs, there was an exhibition of ‘Then and Now’ photographs, which was permanently full with people and another room upstairs was loaded with artefacts and memorabilia, which a number of people were studying with a mix of reverence and awe. Outside in Market Place was a nice mix of cafes, war memorabilia, the W.I. and some softly played music of the days of the Music Hall from pre war Britain.
The banners with stories from Wokingham Renmembers on display prior to Heritage Day.
An fantastically well attended day by the people of Wokingham, fully justifying the amount of work the team had put into it all and brilliantly capped off by a visit by Mr and Mrs John Walter VIth, whose ancestors were not only major patricians prior to the war and builders of Bearwood, but also owners of the London Times. Amazing Day!