Arborfield
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 Memories - Empire Day at Arborfield School

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Empire Day in the 1930's

The Reading Mercury carried a whole set of photographs of Empire Day celebrations in the area around Reading in May 1926. There were two pictures from the school at Arborfield, together with captions as follows:

EMPIRE DAY CELEBRATIONS AT ARBORFIELD SCHOOL - Empire Day was celebrated at the Arborfield, Newland and Barkham School on Friday last week, when the scholars gave a pageant of the Empire. The picture shows Britannia in the centre, with the four elements, sun, rain, wind and snow, together with the oak, willow, poplar and fir trees.



PICTURESQUE DRESSES AT ARBORFIELD - The trees of the Empire, who took part in the pageant of the Empire at the Arborfield, Newland and Barkham School. The dresses were very effective.

[These photos were attributed to 'Collier and Guy', as was usually the case in the Reading Mercury at this period. Unfortunately, the negatives are no longer available, but microfilms of the newspapers can be seen at Reading Local Studies Library, to whom we are grateful for this opportunity to reproduce them here. Thanks also to the 'Chronicle' series of newspapers, who have for many years had a weekly History column, the most recent being known as the 'Retro' series.]

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