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We love working with other charities supporting Forces families, and The Ripple Pond is a charity we admire and are very happy to work with. Here, founder of The Ripple Pond, Julia Molony, shares her story…. Why I set up The Ripple Pond Julia Molony, Founder of The Ripple Pond In 2009 my second son, Anthony, deployed to Afghanistan. This was his 6th tour of duty in seven years. On 21 May I received a phone call from Anthony’s wife to say he had been seriously injured when his vehicle had detonated an IED. Thankfully I have a very [...]

Free seminar at Kingston University – March 22nd 2019 Photo credit: Neil Hanna Photography At Reading Force we support Forces families, and draw wider attention to the special circumstances that are part of their world – but not necessarily understood by others. Forces families tend to be off the general radar. Although there is an annual reminder on 11th November, for much of the year there are those who live the experience of being in the Forces and those who don’t, and the overlap is not large. Forces people tend to be independent, self-contained, and disinclined to complain. And [...]

First man is out and the Oscar predictions are in, mostly for ‘best picture’ and perhaps ‘best leading actor’ for Ryan Gosling, playing the emotionally closed Neil Armstrong. But a wave of sympathy is currently surrounding actress Claire Foy, cast in the ‘thankless role’ of his wife Janet. ‘She’s having an awful time, simply there waiting for her husband to come back and looking distressed’ (Tom Sutcliffe on Saturday Review, 13th October). On the same programme John Mullen described the home scenes as ‘incredibly dull’. Writing for the BBC, Nicholas Barber concluded both parts were ‘too unshowy to win awards.’     [...]

Hello Reading Force families! I'm Emma, I'm a Pad Brat and school librarian and I write a regular blog here about reading and Forces life. I love libraries! When I was growing up I couldn’t always access a library in every country I lived in/travelled to. These days we have more access to books as e-books exist, but back then it was a different story. Every time I would return to England I would make sure I visited the local library and read as many books as I could before travelling away again. Now I am really lucky because I AM [...]

Alison Baverstock founded Reading Force seven years ago. With the launch of our shiny new website and the new school term, Alison reflects on why she started Reading Force…. It’s back to school time all over the country. Children are busy getting creases and scuff marks into what were their pristine new shoes. During the week ahead, universities are preparing for the arrival of a new intake of students (my day job is as an academic at Kingston University where I teach Publishing Studies – incidentally, that’s how I met Hattie Gordon, who now manages Communications and Liaison for Reading Force). [...]

Hello Reading Force families! I'm Emma, I'm a Pad Brat and school librarian and I write a regular blog here about reading and Forces life. The summer holidays are when I really like to get into reading – whether it’s lazing by the pool with a good book, or having a staycation and escaping into fiction. I remember as a child, summer meant travel. We would go on epic long car rides from Germany to France to Italy, through Switzerland and Austria – and all the way to Gibraltar to see the border of Africa! We would always make time to [...]