Personal memories of ordinary people give us a unique and powerful view of life in the past. This collection of memories of Trowbridge people talking about their lives in the town was assembled following recorded interviews made by the author over a period of several months in 1999. Many of these reminiscences are illustrated with photographs of the people doing the talking and the places and events they describe, bringing vividly to life the stories they tell.

This book is a trip into the past that will be a revelation for many a younger reader and yet it describes events and activities within living memory. There are fascinating tales of street games and home entertainment in the days before TV and home computers were dreamed of and there are graphic descriptions of working for one’s living in Trowbridge’s factories and mills. In times before the NHS and the benefits of modern medicine many children spent what must have seemed like endless months in isolation hospitals or obtained treatment if their parents had managed to save up for it in advance. The heyday of the local carnivals are remembered by many but so are the dark days of the wars, including working inthe munitions factories and a time when bombs landed on Town Bridge and ‘left no windows in along the whole of the Parade and as far as the station’.

The author Ruth Marshall has assembled a book that is an important record of life in the town during the twentieth century which will be an important source for local historians and one that will fascinate Trowbridge residents of all ages.