Bletchley The Home Of The Codebreakers. You can forget that !

Have a bit of fun with this !

Here's a chapter from my book Mkeneyan. Have a bit  of laugh reading this. Mkeneyan is the third in my Milton Keynes Trilogy. NOT THE CONCRETE COWS - published 1993  MILTON DREAMS THE CITY THAT NEVER WAS - published 2020  and MKENEYAN published in June this year.

ALL royalt ies from all books are given to University Hospital Milton Keynes to suppport children who are sick in hospital.

Bletchley The Home Of The Codebreakers. You can forget that !

There is more to Bletchley Park than Alan Turing and his gang. It dates way back to the Doomsday Book, codebreaking is but a few years in its history and yes history is bunk after all !

There is more to Bletchley than Bletchley Park and there is more to Milton Keynes than its southern tip which the Anglo Saxons named Blecca’s Lea meaning a meadow or clearing in the trees. Who was Blecca I am wondering.

When I first came to live in the area we were known as Bletchleyites, that’s a forgotten name is it not ? Far better to be an Mkeneyan.

Hey as I begin this chapter am I raising a few hackles ? Your hackles may be raising but my tongue is in my cheek.

Bletchley the home of the codebreakers – FORGET IT !  How about Bletchley the home of the sausage ?

Scott of Bletchley, makers of the world’s finest cooked meat. That was no empty boast I can assure you. Located on Watling Street this business was too successful for our infant new city, workers had to be bussed up from London to meet the sausage demand. Scott of Bletchley, I wonder if the contacted coaches were Bletchley Coaches owned by Brian Baldry at one time Mayor of Milton Keynes. I can assure you Scott made far more sausages than ever the breakers decoded.

Olney the home of Amazing Grace. (Not to mention the odd pancake !)

What is the song which has been recorded by more artists than any other ? You don’t  need the Guinness Book of Records to tell you that song is Amazing Grace. Even the King of Rock and Roll himself recorded Amazing Grace. He used The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as his backing group. Pardon the pun but it truly is AMAZING.

Born on Saturday 4^th  August 1725 John Newton was captain of a slave trading ship. How horrible was that occupation. But some amazing grace wrapped itself around him and he totally changed his career becoming an Anglican Church cleric. For a time he served in Saint Peter’s and Saint Paul’s Church Olney where he wrote the world’s most artist recorded song.

John Newton left us on Monday 21^st December 1807 giving Milton Keynes heritage way beyond any codebreaker, sausage or tea bag.

Tea bag ?  Watch this space !

Tetley Tea may be world famous but it has its rivals, Typhoo, PG Tips et al but there is only one brand of pancake and that is an Mkeneyan pancake given to the world by Olney. I wonder if John Newton had an Olney Pancake for breakfast on the day he composed Amazing Grace. Ah no John Newton  was not born until 1725, legend tells us the Olney Pancake Race dates back to 1445. On Shrove Tuesday similar races are held around the world but none is as famous as our Olney Pancake race.

It may be history, it may be only a legend, a tradition. It may have happened, it may not have happened: but it could have happened. Thank You Mark Twain did they have a pancake race in Virginia City when you were editor of its local newspaper ?

Legend says that in 1445 a lady living in Olney was so engrossed in pancake making she forgot the time. When she heard the church bells ringing for the service she stopped what she was doing and raced to the pews. However, she did not put down her frying pan and took it with her.

Today any female over the age of eighteen who has lived in Olney for three months can race with their pancake in the footsteps on the 1445 absent minded lady and her frying pan.

Back to Bletchley.  Bletchley the home of the tea bag.

Have you been watching this space ? In a moment you can go off and make yourself a pancake which you can eat while sipping a cup of tea, Tetley teabag tea.

Once upon a time Tetley had a vast factory in Bletchley from which it first introduced the tea bag to our nation in 1953. That was the year of Her Majesty’s Coronation, did she have a Bletchley cup of tea when it was all over ?

Sadly Tetley moved away from the area in the early days of the New City of Milton Keynes but it did not take away its legend and tea bag heritage.

Stony Stratford ? That sounds like a cock and bull story to me.

Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross. Did you sing that as a kid ? Great, have a go and sing it again right now.

Ride a Cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady upon a white horse;
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
And she shall have music wherever she goes.

Never mind Banbury and its cross. Forget the lady with her rings and bells, I wonder if she rode side-saddle. The important thing here is the horse, the Cock-Horse.

The Cock Inn was a coaching in in Stony Stratford. Today it is a celebrated landmark of legend and history in The City of Milton Keynes.

Bullshit !

Excuse me !  How dare I used language like that in my book ? 

I am talking about legends, I am talking about heritage and legend says Stony Stratford gave that word to our language.

Publishers of The Oxford English Dictionary what does the word bullshit mean ?

Nonsense, it means nonsense. It is an offensive word for ideas, statements or beliefs that you think are silly or not true.

By the way you dictionary publishers I will be inviting you, when I have finished writing this book, to add some more words to the lexicon of the English Language. Mkeneyan of course but also former Milton Keynes mayor Mike Barry’s collective noun for a group of mayors, a chain gang. However, before then let me explain the origin of the word bullshit.

I have spoken about the Cock Inn in Stony Stratford, there is also just down the road the Bull Inn, another coaching Inn. Take a walk along Stony Stratford High Street and look at the abundance of pubs, notice how there are large archway entrances leading to stable yards at their rear. You will find similar establishments in other areas of Milton Keynes; Fenny Stratford and Woburn Sands but not Bletchley. Apparently sausages, tea bags and broken codes used motorised transport and not horses together with their carts.

Enough of that bullshit, back to Stony Stratford’s famous Cock Inn and Bull Inn. Legend says, Samuel Langhorne Clemens aka Mark Twain are you reading this, says that travellers staying in the Cock Inn would have a few pints too many of its ale and share  somewhat unlikely tales among themselves then run, perhaps given the ale that should be stagger, down to The Bull Inn where they related them to the inebriated residents in its bar.  Hence Cock And Bull Story. Oxford English Dictionary take note.

Mark Twain, I can’t say I ever read one of your newspapers but I have visited Virginia City in the US State of Nevada where there was not a single inn in sight.

Milton Keynes the home of rocket chemicals

When WD-40, the lubricating oil with a difference, was introduced to Great Britain I had a Saturday job working in our local hardware shop. Proudly stocking this new super product we told customers that NASA used it in their spaceships. Not so, before it was called WD-40 it was produced by the Rocket Chemical Company of San Diego California. Nothing to do with Apollo, Gemini or Mercury space rockets. What does WD-40 translate into Russian ? Whatever, Yuri Gagarin had never heard of it.

Have you ever heard of it , WFD-40 ? Have you got a tin of this magic spray in your house ?  I have. Where is the UK headquarters of WD-40 aka Rocket Chemical ?  You got it, Milton Keynes.

Newport Pagnell ?  James Bond lives down our street.

Never fancied driving an Aston Martin myself although in my Richard Headington detective stories JIF does.

Now seriously, what is Newport Pagnell’s greatest claim to fame ?  Do you ever watch Birds of a Feather on retro TV ?  Daryl Stubbs and Christopher Theodopolopdis are serving an eight stretch for armed robbery. It was in Newport Pagnell according to series creators Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, that they waved their sawn off shotguns.

As a kid at school growing up in the Royal Borough of Sutton Coldfield my mates and I had never heard of Milton Keynes, OK in 1959 there was the village but any idea for a new city had yet to wave its way into the thinking of Harold Wilson but we knew about Newport Pagnell. We called it Newporto Pagnellio, don’t ask me why we just did. And we had all been there.

On 2^nd November 1959, one day before my ninth birthday, Newporto Pagnellio Service Station opened on the M1 Motorway. My Dad drove a black Standard Eight which even in 1959 was getting on in years. Driving down to London to visit my grandparents this first service station on the motorway network was where we stopped to fill up with petrol and empty bodily tanks if you know what I mean. As an Mkeneyan I think you should all check out this legendary Newporto Pagnellio location.

James Bond Lives Down Our Street by Toys and Dolls ?  A great hit from 1985, off you pop to YouTube and have a listen.

My name is Bond! James Bond.
James Bond lives down our street
I've seen him he catches the 32 bus
James Bond lives down our street
sometimes he sits on the back seat with us
he's got a gun strapped to his chest
you can't shoot him in a bullet proof vest
a clever lad but can be a pest sometime
CHORUS:
0.0.7. James Bond lives down our street
Jimmy's a spy but both you and I know
Sean Connery or Roger Moore, that I'm not quite sure
But what I know is James Bond...
lives down our street
James Bond lives down our street
sometimes he gets a helicopter to work
James Bond lives down our street
me dad's oldfashioned and he says he's a jerk
he's always chasing a heavy mob
he should go out and get a proper job
he should go out and get a proper job sometime
CHORUS
Down our street there lives a spy
says he works for M.I.5
he's always a star when you're having a party
says he went to school with Russel Harty
he's a real smarty
he is a real smarty.
My hair is Blonde ! Dyed blonde !

In my book Richard Headington Private Investigator and its sequel The Case Files of Headington and Flemming Jif drives an Aston Martin DB11. James Bond favoured the Aston Martin DB5.

Which was the very first James Bond film you ever saw ?  For me it was Thunderball. At school we teenagers read Ian Fleming’s novels but were told by the teachers his writing was a flash in the pan, give it ten years and James Bond would have been forgotten. Thunderball was the fourth James Bond film. How many have there been so far ?

1962  Doctor No

1963 From Russia With Love

1964 Goldfinger

1965 Thunderball

1967 You Only Live Twice

1969 On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

1971 Diamonds Are Forever

1973 Live And Let Die

1974 The Man With The Golden Gun

1977 The Spy Who Loved Me

1979 Moonraker

1981 For Your Eyes Only

1983 Octopussy

1985 A View To A Kill

1987 The Living Daylights

1989 Licence To Kill

1995 Goldeneye

1997 Tomorrow Never Dies

1999 The World Is Not Enough

2002 Die Another Day

2006 Casino Royale

2008 Quantum Of Solace

2012 Skyfall

2015 Spectre

2021 No Time To Die

Twenty-five James bond films over fifty-nine years, hardly a flash in the pan !  What was the most popular car in 1962 ?  The Austin Mini-Minor. Without Newport Pagnell Agent 007 would have been licenced to drive this product of Alec Issigonis rather than an Aston Martin.

Ousedale School, Newport Pagnell’s centre of education. As a Work Tree volunteer I was once speaking with a group of Mkeneyan teenagers in this school. We were talking about the plight of homeless rough-sleepers. This lovely young lady, she would have been about fourteen, spoke about how she and a friend were in Central Milton Keynes and had seen one such person. That coming week-end she and her friend were going back to the shopping centre to buy a pillow and a blanket which they would give to the unfortunate gentleman. What truly lovely people she and her friend were. To my way of thinking there was more fortune in their kindness than all the profit from the twenty-five James Bond films put together.

One last thought. If this is Newport Pagnell, where is Oldport Pagnell ?

Wolverton – is that place still working ?

In the early 1970’s I toured Wolverton Works where its site manager said: There would be grass growing in the street of Wolverton if it were not for the railway.

In the good old days there was Bletchley Station in the South and Wolverton Station in the North. Central Milton Keynes Railway Station did not open until 1982. It was HRH Prince Charles who cut its ribbon. I wonder who opened Bletchley but never mind that it is Wolverton right now that is important.

But Wolverton was more than a small railway station. Along one side of the road was Wolverton Works. Conveniently located mid-way between London and Birmingham Wolverton was the maintenance centre for railway carriages. It also had a P-Way team (Permanent Way) maintaining the rail tracks. The Royal Train was garaged at Wolverton, hidden in a siding behind the work sheds.

Sadly, Wolverton Works is no more. The site now accommodates Tesco Supermarket, this that and the other. However, there is no garden maintenance contractor as grass is not growing in the twenty-first century streets of Wolverton.

The now infamous publisher Robert Maxwell was labour member of parliament for Buckingham, which included Milton Keynes, from 15^th October 1964 until 29^th May 1970. I will talk more of this gentleman in another chapter but to say here he was a major employer in the

early days of Milton Keynes. He took over Bletchley Printers and made it part of Pergamon Press. In Wolverton, on the opposite side of the road to Wolverton Works were buildings housing areas of the Maxwell Corporation’s empire. What’s there today ? Go and have a look. I can tell you one thing and that is you will not find a single blade of grass nor will you find a single printing press.  That’s TWO things. Ah yes. It would appear, like Robert Maxwell, I have difficulty counting.

Bletchley The Home of the Sausage ?  Nah, I’m vegan !  Bletchley The Home of the Teabag ? Sorry but I am tea-total ! I guess I’ll just have to go and break a few codes. Anyone got a hammer I can borrow ?