Life in Reading

Written on March 5, 2010 by smittenbybritainComment

Today we travel to the south east of England to the home of one of the world’s best known rock festivals and The University of Reading. The first thing you need to know is that the town name is pronounced “Redding” and not “Reading.” You may or may not be aware that there is also a Reading, P.A. (also in Berks county) which is pronounced the very same way. The town’s founders were the children of William Penn (P.A.’s namesake) and named Reading in honor of their home town in England.

Today’s travel post is written by Clare Auchterlonie, whom I met on Twitter and know as @pollypissypants (one of my fave Twitter names btw.) Although she now lives in California, she will always be a Reading girl. You can follow Clare on Twitter here but in the meantime enjoy her lovely and informative post below.

My home town is Reading in the county of Berkshire. We don’t have a particular accent like the Geordies or Brummies, although I’ve often thought people from the shires – Berkshire, Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire, etc have a tendency to slur the end of words a little, like a farmer whose had too much cider i.e but-tarr , bar-ath.

You can listen to these wonderful clips of Berkshire accents from the BBC website from a project put together in 2005: Voices of Berkshire. Interestingly from that project they discovered the only really regional slang word was ‘cheeselog’ meaning woodlouse (UK) or pillbug (US).

Growing up in Reading, on reflection wasn’t that bad. It was rough in parts like most towns, and unlike most towns, at least once a year it was REALLY cool to be from Reading. Every August bank holiday weekend, the rock n’roll circus rolled into town in the form of Reading Festival. Since 1971, every famous act from Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Nirvana, Radiohead, to Pearl Jam with Neil Young has graced the stages of Reading Festival at some point. (In 1999 the Reading event has been twinned with a simultaneous festival in Leeds, with the same acts appearing at both festivals on different days).

Surprisingly, given its size, Reading is not yet officially a city – it’s still merely a town, despite having a well thought of university, major hospital, central library but no cathedral – which apparently you need to be a full fledged city without the Queen’s blessing, we just have the crumbling remains of an Abbey with the burial site of King Henry I. England’s had way too many kings for that to be impressive. So, the last time her majesty was dishing out cityships in 2000 she chose Brighton and Hove instead. Can’t say I don’t blame her.

Reading has had a few literary connections with the best known being Oscar Wilde, who was imprisoned in Reading Gaol from 1895 to 1897. While he was there he wrote De Profundis, which was published in 1905. After his release he lived in exile in France and wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol , based on his experience of an execution carried out in Reading Gaol whilst he was imprisoned there. Much later on in 1984, Reading Prison would be home to actor Stacey Keach for six months. Two other lesser known literary facts about Reading is in Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure, Reading is thinly disguised as the town Aldbrickham and that in the late 16th century Jane Austen attended Reading Ladies Boarding School, which was then based in the Abbey Gateway.

These days Reading’s most famous have moved on – Ricky Gervais whose upcoming film Cemetery Junction will be based in 1970s Reading and is named after a busy junction in East Reading, where I once lived. Charlie Brooker (Guardian columnist, News satirist), Kenneth Branagh (snooty actor) Lucy Benjamin (ex Eastenders), Simon Doonan (who wrote about his experiences growing up in Reading in book / TV show Beautiful People), Dawn French (actress), Kate Winslet (actress) and her husband Sam Mendes (director) are all from Reading. Kate is lucky enough to have a rather rough estate named after her – lucky girl.

So would I recommend a stop in Reading? Probably not. There’s a good chance you will go through it on your way to somewhere else on the train but I don’t recommend getting off unless you are really into shopping or are there for the music festival. The new shopping centre, The Oracle, which houses about 90 retail outlets is the mecca in one easy central location without having to traipse all over London. Reading festival makes Cochella look like an awkward kid’s tea party that you get invited to when you are too old to be going to kid’s parties anymore. It’s still really good. The Festival line up will be announced in March : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_%28HM_Prison%29 around £180 for a weekend ticket.