Record Number: 30882

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Reading Experience:

Evidence:

'The ... grandiloquent "education programme" we were able to satisfy sufficiently. A number of the "boys" were barely literate and Miss Nettleton could deal with the three R's. Some of them were not at all too old to sit around her on the floor like children while she read them Treasure Island or The Wind in the Willows: this could be counted as an hour of "English".'

Century:

1900-1945

Date:

Between Aug 1915 and Oct 1919

Country:

France

Time

n/a

Place:

city: Le Havre

Type of Experience
(Reader):
 

silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Type of Experience
(Listener):
 

passive in company unknown
single serial unknown

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Reader / Listener / Reading Group:

Reader:

Irene Nettleton

Age:

Adult (18-100+)

Gender:

Female

Date of Birth:

1875

Socio-Economic Group:

Clerk / tradesman / artisan / smallholder

Occupation:

YMCA volunteer, nominally listed as "canteen worker"

Religion:

n/a

Country of Origin:

England

Country of Experience:

France

Listeners present if any:
e.g family, servants, friends

British Army soldiers, members of the YMCA's Young Soldiers' Club.

Additional Comments:

n/a

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Text Being Read:

Author:

Kenneth Grahame

Title:

The Wind in the Willows

Genre:

Fiction, Children's Lit

Form of Text:

Print: Book

Publication Details

First published 1908.

Provenance

unknown

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Source Information:

Record ID:

30882

Source:

Print

Author:

Barclay Baron

Editor:

Michael Snape

Title:

The Back Parts of War: The YMCA Memoirs and Letters of Barclay Baron, 1915-1919

Place of Publication:

Woodbridge, Suffolk

Date of Publication:

2009

Vol:

n/a

Page:

115

Additional Comments:

n/a

Citation:

Barclay Baron, Michael Snape (ed.), The Back Parts of War: The YMCA Memoirs and Letters of Barclay Baron, 1915-1919, (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2009), n/a, p. 115, http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/reading/UK/record_details.php?id=30882, accessed: 09 May 2025

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Additional Comments:

Baron describes Miss Nettleton as an "elderly maiden lady," and Michael Snape identifies her from YMCA records as coming from Battersea. The 1911 census records an Irene Nettleton, 36, born in Clapham, living in Wandsworth, which suggests that Nettleton was only in her early 40s when Baron knew her.