Page 515 - Reading Mercury

A well-known Wokingham sportsman, Mr. Reginald Howard Mattingley, aged 26,
of 18, Easthampstead Road, Wokingham, received fatal injuries in a motor-cycle
accident on Saturday evening. He was travelling from Reading to Wokingham with a
pillion passenger, and in approaching the railway bridge near St. Paul’s Church he
appears to have collided with a horse, which resulted in he and his companion being
thrown off. The pillion rider only received minor injuries, but Mattingley received
severe fracture of the skull, from which he died about three hours later in the Royal
Berkshire Hospital.
Mr. Reginald Mattingley was the third son of the late Mr. Frederick Mattingley, the
well-known football referee. He was a devotee of motor-cycling, and rode a Scott
machine. A well-known figure in Wokingham, he was a grocer’s assistant the local
branch of the Reading Co-operative Society, and was greatly respected by the
manager and his colleagues, and by the management at Reading. He was a member of
the British Legion Club, Wokingham, of the Wokingham Lawn Tennis club, and of
the Peach Street Boys’ Club. His brother, Mr. F.W. Mattingley, is the efficient
secretary of the Wokingham Cage Bird Society.

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Sat 24 September
TROOPS IN WOKINGHAM
Dorsets Beat “The Retreat.”
INHABITANTS WELCOME THE TROOPS
The sudden cessation of the military manoeuvres on account of bad weather, and the
decision of the authorities that Bill Hill camp, Wokingham, being on clay soil and
waterlogged, occupied an untenable site for night camping, had the effect of
converting Wokingham to all intents and purposes into a garrison station. Promptly
upon the order “Back to Aldershot” the homeward movement began, and Friday last
week saw its commencement, with men, horses and guns, tanks and service wagons,
passing daily in unending stream through the town. The tanks, never-failing objects of
interest to the thronging crowds, passed via Oxford Road and Wellington Road, and
thus avoided the streets, but all the other forces journeyed via Broad Street and
Denmark Street to Finchampstead Road. The mud freely plastered on men, horses and
wheels afforded eloquent testimony of the discomforts of the “battle” area, and some
of the earlier arrivals, whether human or equine, showed evident signs of fatigue.
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On Saturday the 4 Infantry Brigade marched through the town from Nettlebed and
continued their way to Aldershot, completing the long march in the day. The military
stream abated not on the Sunday, the morning being taken up with the passage of
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horse traffic. During the afternoon the 6 Infantry Brigade arrived from Nettlebed.
Accommodation for these was provided in the town and in adjacent farms, etc.
Children of the Baptist Sunday School, Milton Road, found the gates of their school
closed to them, the building being occupied by a company of the Royal West Kent
Regiment. The school books, etc., were carried off by the scholars to the lecture room
opposite, to make room for the visitors.
The troops were billeted in the British Legion Hall, where a cordial welcome
awaited them, in the Town Hall, Drill Hall, Church House, and in the outbuildings
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attached to private residences. On Monday the 5 Infantry Brigade arrived in the
afternoon, and after a dinner halt only at Bill Hill camp, this smart brigade was
entertained in the same manner as its predecessors. A battalion occupied Keep Hatch
and adjacent farms. Many soldiers found quarters in the open shelter shed at the
Palmer School playground, and on “Reveille” being sounded on Tuesday morning, a
nearby cottage resident supplied them all with a cup of tea each – a typical illustration

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