Page 1088 - Reading Mercury

The Mayor of Wokingham, Cllr. Peter Johnson, presented a frames scroll to General
Sir Hugh Beach, Representative Col., Commandant of R.E.M.E., granting the unusual
honour to the Corps. In return the Mayor accepted an engraved silver salver on behalf
of the town.
Sir Hugh Beach praised the wisdom and foresight of wartime members of the
R.E.M.E. Corps in selecting Arborfield as a training centre with its proximity to
Wokingham, “Whose hospitality those soldiers enjoyed as much as we do today.”
After inspecting the Town Guard, under Parade Commander Lieut. Col. C.J.
Derbyshire, the Mayor, Cllr. Peter Johnson, addressed the packed crowd watching the
ceremony. He said he was proud to bestow the title of Honorary Townspeople on the
R.E.M.E. Corps because of their happy integration with the town since the Corps’s
involvement in 1942. The Corps, Garrison and Wokingham have grown rapidly since
that day. Like the acorns in the town coat of arms, all have grown to large oaks. It has
always been a great satisfaction to us that so many members of the Corps have settled
here on completion of their service. He was sure that the official ceremony would
further cement the ties between them and they would follow the future achievements
of the Corps with mutual pride.
The civic ceremony ended with a parade through the town of 450 R.E.M.E. officers
and men, who exercised their new status by marching with bayonets fixed, and led by
the staff band.
After the parade, the Town Council held a reception at Ed’s Barn Country Club,
Wokingham, and in the evening invited guests attended a cocktail party at the
R.E.M.E. Headquarters Officers’ Mess at West Court, Finchampstead.

POLICE SEEK BOYS AFTER £20,000 BLAZE
Fire ripped through Ludgrove School Farm this week, 50 yards from Ludgrove
School, causing damage estimated at £20,000 just after 4 pm on Tuesday. It destroyed
a Dutch barn containing a 100 tons of baled hay owned by Mr. Allan Barber.
Wokingham police have issued a description of two boys they would like to interview
in connection with the incident. They were seen by the lake adjacent to the barn about
an hour before the fire started.
Five appliances attended from Wokingham, Reading, Bracknell, Crowthorne and
Ascot and the blaze was under control within an hour, although firemen stayed at the
farm until early on Wednesday morning.

1979

No Wokingham articles from the Berkshire Mercury.
No microfilms of the Wokingham Times between January 1972 and April 1981. Any
reports in between these dates come from old copies of the Wokingham Times
newspaper.

1981
th
Thur Feb 19
LIFETIME OF SERVICE TO TOWN CLINIC
Miss Evelyn Ward who received the M.B.E. in the New Year’s Honours list last
month has died at the age of 80. Miss Ward was honoured for her service in
Wokingham Memorial Orthopaedic Clinic. But her sudden death denied her the

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