Published: Thursday, 13th November, 2008 7:00am

Retro: What a circus

by David Cliffe

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THIS is one of my favourite photographs of Reading, taken in Broad Street about 1890 on the day the circus came to town.

The spectacle of circus elephants arriving by train and being led through the streets to the big top is something I can remember from the 1950s, though not in Reading.

I expect that here about 1890, the show would have taken place on The Triangle - the piece of land where Friar Street, Chatham Street and Caversham Road met.

Cheapside hadn't yet been constructed, and the area is now, of course, a traffic roundabout.

This picture has been used on the publicity material for the forthcoming local and family history day at the Central Library, on Saturday, November 15, from 11am-4pm. I thought that regular readers of this column would like to know about it, since the emphasis will be on old photographs and films.

There will be an expert from the Berkshire Family History Society to help with dating old family photographs, and using them to put together a family history.

The conservation expert from the Berkshire Record Office will be on hand to offer advice on looking after photographic material - prints, negatives, and glass plates.

Some conservation materials will be available for sale. And I'm particularly pleased that the archivist from the Wessex Film and Sound Archive will be with us.

Although the archive is based in Winchester, it's the place to go for old moving pictures of Reading and Berkshire.

He will be bringing some old movie films of the area,

transferred to DVD, for visitors to look at, and will be able to tell us about the scope of the archive, and the usefulness of old movie films, video and audio tapes to historians.

Should you own any old movie film, he'll be able to advise on looking after it. The library staff will be there as well, myself included, to tell you about our digitisation project - over 6,000 images of the local area are now viewable from the library website.

There is no need to book, and you are welcome to bring along old photographs, movie film, video and audio tapes. It should be a busy and most interesting day.