Anne Bradford was born….(more)
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An Illustrated Guide To Redditch History
The Illustrated Guide To Redditch History is a book targeted at younger readers as both as document they can enjoy as well as a useful source to find out more about the history of Redditch. Having said this, we see no reason why readers of any age should also not enjoy this brief excursion through the town's history.

It is structured based upon topics which has influenced and shaped the town though its history. These are presented in a broad chronological order although there is some topic groupings irrespective of the time-frame when they occurred.

Is does not set out to detail every fact about that topic but to give an overview of the topic in the hope that the reader in then encouraged to seek more detail from other historical sources.

The book was written by Anne Bradford, a well known Redditch author of both history books and Chost story books.

About five years ago, inspired by a Chidrens History of Coventry book, Anne decided to write a History book of Redditch for children.

With all the material she had collected over the years, and many contacts made in Redditch from publishing books, Anne accumulated the base material for the book. Anne then sought the help of a local artist and designer and they set about creating the Children's History Book of Redditch.  However, like most things relating to children it grew like topsy.  It got bigger and bigger and it was hard to work out what to include and what to leave out. This was not helped by the publishing software they used becoming out-of-date and expensive to upgrade. The future of the book was therefore in doubt.

I have known Anne for nearly ten years since first becoming involved with local history when I retired. She often told me about the book, the issues she was having and the uncertainty for its future.  Having seen a draft, I was concerned that all the effort and hard work that had gone into it so far would be wasted so I offered to help.  That help has been in the form of re-creating the master using software that allows it to be published electronically. The result is the document which is published on this site.

We have agreed with Anne that it should be freely available for all to read and enjoy, but remember, it was written for children.
The Author
Derek Coombes
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