The Mayor of Reading, David Stevens, has been delving into the historic circumstances of the friendship between Reading and Düsseldorf, and the first of three in a mini-series of talks is now available on Youtube.
The conversation between the Mayor and the historian Dr Christopher Knowles, author of Winning the Peace and Transforming Occupation in the Western Zones of Germany, focuses on the state of Germany in 1945-6, the contribution by the British Army and civil administrators to rebuilding the country, and the conditions which prompted Cllr Phoebe Cusden to launch the ‘The Mayor’s Winter Collection for German children’.
The second conversation has been filmed and is currently being edited, and a link to it will be posted here in due course.
The final ‘conversation’ will take the form of an Open Evening at the Civic Centre on Bridge Street, Reading, on 2 November 2021 with invited guests, members, friends and supporters of the RDA. Booking is essential – find out more and book here.