Author, publisher, academic, and charity founder, Alison Baverstock, has been awarded an MBE in recognition of her services to military families in the recent King’s Birthday Honours List. She has just received the award from Prince William at Windsor Castle, who during the investiture recalled his own early reading experiences.
Alongside a career devoted to publishing, books and readers, Alison was an Army wife and mother of four – and is now a veteran’s wife (same man, different role!). She founded Reading Force in 2010 on the premise that talking about books within the military family can maintain relationships and improve communication, even when a parent is deployed away from home. Alison commented:
“Reading Force was very much based on personal experience. Our family had found that sharing books gave everyone something to think about in between phone calls, and to talk about when we had the chance to speak.”
Families say doing Reading Force has enabled children to have common ground with absent parents, even when separated for lengthy periods of time. They have so far circulated over 250,000 reading scrapbooks to military families worldwide. The charity firmly believes in children having books in the home, no matter how often they may move, and works with publishers to source great titles to give to children and families to share and keep.
14 years on Reading Force supports British tri-service military families all over the UK and based overseas. In recent years the charity has also set up a successful book clubs wing, to foster connections within the military community and to support the welfare of veterans and other groups. Hattie Gordon, a former student of Alison’s on MA Publishing at Kingston, who has been with the project since it began, commented:
“I think the reason Reading Force has spread is that it’s a very simple idea, that is easy to understand. So it works well across different locations and cultures. The issue of how you keep in touch with wider family when life is constantly changing is an ongoing one for the military community.”
Alison is keen to thank her eight strong team, trustees and patrons, including Lord Blunkett, headteacher Amanda Rowley, and authors Sir Michael Morpurgo, Tom Palmer, Sally Gardner and Meg Rosoff, and the generous funders who have made and continue to make Reading Force possible.
For information about Reading Force and how they support serving and ex-serving families: www.readingforce.org.uk
