Book launches and reviews
East Bridgford Local History Group, Images of East Bridgford: the Twentieth Century in Photographs (East Bridgford Local History Group, 2000). Copies available from Mr W. Whitaker, 21 Walnut Tree Lane, East Bridgford, Nottingham, NG13 8NN (tel. 01949 20982). Price £6 including p&p.
The East Bridgford Local History Group was established in the summer of 1999 with the intention of producing a history of the village in the 20th-century. This proved a little too ambitious! But, with a grant from the Millennium Festival Awards for All Scheme, they have produced an excellent collection of (well captioned) photographs illustrating many themes of 20th-century life. East Bridgford has been transformed in the twentieth century, and particularly since 1945, from an agricultural village to a commuter suburb of Nottingham. Orchard and pasture have disappeared under roads and houses. Consequently this book is a timely record of what has changed in the village since, as the authors note, ‘East Bridgford today would be unrecognisable to our forefathers’. We must hope the Local History Group can go on to fulfil its 1999 ambition, but meanwhile this is an excellent way of recording change in East Bridgford over the past century.
John Beckett