THE Chronicle gave readers the chance to explore our centuries old archives as part of Heritage Open Days on Friday.

Visitors flocked to the Portman Road headquarters, having requested to see copies of The Reading Mercury and The Reading Chronicle from a collection stretching back to the 18th Century.

They had asked to read everything from birth announcements and crown court proceedings involving relatives to reports on the first Reading Festival in 1971 and Battle of Maiwand in 1880.

Reg Badger, 86, from Tilehurst, found a photograph he took in February 1943 of the People's Pantry after it was destroyed by a German bomb, killing 41 people. He said: "It was the day after the bombing, I went to take pictures, it was not very nice. There were bits of bodies and they were still looking for people."

Reg joined The Chronicle, formerly in Valpy Street, when he was 14 as a copy reader before becoming an apprentice photographer but left in 1943 to join the Fleet Air Arm. He explained how during the Second World War, photographs and reports had to be taken to London each week and approved by the Government for printing

He was joined by wife Colleen, 82, who remembers seeing the plane before the bombing, and added: "I had just come home from school, George Palmer, and my mother pushed us under the stairs. It was flying very low and made one hell of a noise."

John Chapman, 76, from Purley, chairman of the implementation and design committee of the Trooper Potts VC Memorial Trust, read reports of the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot's exploits during Second Anglo-Afghan War - which ended with its massacre in 1880 at Maiwand.

The military history enthusiast said: "Modern war reporting very much focuses on casualties but what you are getting in this period are reports of the telegrams that had come into the India officer and various others. It is fascinating."