Reading in the 1950s

In Reading: The 1950s Stuart Hylton gives a fascinating account of the town and its people during a decade of rapid and memorable change. His story beings in the drab atmosphere of the early postwar years, with their austerity and sense of shrinking empire and declining national prestige. It ends with the brash new world of the swinging sixties, which brought the Beatles, the miniskirt and the Mini car. The book recalls how television and labour-saving appliances revolutionised the home, and how the motor car began to dominate travel and to alter the character of the town. It shows too how launderettes, multi-storey car parks and other innovations were regarded with suspicion or as miracles of modern technology. His story captures the spirit of the population during an era of bewildering development and change, and his book reminds us that the values and attitudes of 1950s Reading belong to a world that is vastly different to our own.

STUART HYLTON is a freelance writer, a local historian, and the author of numerous history titles including Careless Talk: A Hidden History of the Home Front, Reading at War and A History of Manchester.