Dr Harold Garnar Reading (1924–2019)

Abstract

Dr Harold Reading, who died on 13th October 2019 at the age of 95, was a pioneering sedimentologist of international renown, with strong links to the geology of the Pennines. He was a member of the Yorkshire Geological Society for 62 years, only cancelling his subscription in early 2019, when his eyesight failed. He will be best remembered for his ground-breaking textbook ‘Sedimentary Environments and Facies’. Harold was born in Kent in 1924 and was educated in the Wirral and in Hertfordshire. His formal education was curtailed by the war and, at the age of eighteen, Harold joined the Indian Army, travelling by ship via South Africa and serving in a cavalry regiment in the northwest of pre-partition India until 1947. The experiences of this exciting time had a lasting influence on Harold's international understanding and perspective. On returning to post-war Britain, Harold obtained a place at Oxford University to read Forestry, which included an option to take Geology as a subsidiary subject. This course was …