For Reading you can chuck in Henry i being buried their, the music festival, Oscar Wilde being imprisoned there, quite a few other literature references with links to Jane Austen, and Thomas Hardy. Ricky Gervais is from Reading and Gustav Holst lectured at the Uni. George Clooney owns a house on outskirts. Nearby are also Harwell where the UK did a lot of atomic research and Diamond is based and Henley is famous for the rowing.
But if you were parachuted into Reading today, what would you actually go and do or see?
Henry’s grave is allegedly somewhere in the abbey area, which has mostly had 2 generations of tower blocks built on it now.
The festival is 3 days in August, and isn’t really ‘in’ Reading, apart from the disruption (i like the festival, but it’s not like you can just wander in, and there’s no atmosphere outside the fence unlike say the Fringe).
There is the jail, Oscar Wilde was there, important or exciting? It’s now on a roundabout with Staples, homebase and Toys’R’us.
Jane Austen, and Thomas Hardy. Austen was further south in Hampshire, Hardy was further north. Neither was in Reading.
Didn’t know Gustav Holst lectured at the Uni, but again it’s not something you could go and do or see (and I had to google who he was).
I’ve been here 7 years now, I’ve still not changed my mind that Reading is a cultural and historical vacuum. It’s like Slough, only escaping the same criticisms because Windsor isn’t next door to make it glaringly obvious.