My, How Little You've Changed!

Recently I've been taking an interest in tracing my family tree. Although to be honest I've been taking a bit of a back seat and been getting some help. Something that has come to light is just how fixed in the Reading area all sides of my family have been. You'd think therefore tracing ancestors would be pretty straight forward but when one branch a generation or so back have the "Smith" surname it's not such a small task tracking down the right family members from old census documents. Particularly when someone has seen fit at a later date to amend documents, changing descriptions of occupations to more "glamorous" sounding ones...

Anyway something that has been quite fun has been looking at old images of Reading town centre. This got me thinking about how much the town has changed over the years and perhaps how much or little a grandparent (or great grandparent) would recognise of our home town. Cutting a long story short, I took a walk about town today armed with my camera. Take a look, what do you think?

Friar Street, looking towards the clock tower of Reading Town Hall (1950ish) and what is now Reading Museum (2010).

Queen Victoria Street, looking towards Heelas department store (1950ish) and the recently re-branded John Lewis department store (2010). Note the façade has had something of a face-lift but it is the same store. Promise.



Oh I should also mention that apparently last weekend the final batch of beer was shipped from the town's brewery, bringing to an end a proud history of beer making in Reading. I blogged about this a couple of years back when the closure was announced; the Three B's are no more.