Members of Parliament and the odd Prime Minister.

Members of Parliament and the odd Prime Minister. Well aren’t all prime ministers a bit odd ! Goes with the job. Let’s twist a political kaleidoscope and see what happens.

Did you know that Maggie Thatcher bought her clothes in Bletchley ?  Oh yes, she did. Who remembers where Woolworths used to be ? Do you, well that’s got nothing to do with it,  she was a customer of Rodex Coats. No line then on which she could order but there was a thing called mail order.  Teaching at Leon School I twinned our students with those from Sutter Junior High School in Sacramento, California. The Milton Keynes Development Corporation threw fifty quid into our exchange fund on condition I handed Rodex catalogues to the American teachers.

25^th September 1979 the Centre MK opened with Maggie Thatcher cutting the ribbon. The truth is Maggie only came to buy a handbag from John Lewis, Woolworths didn’t sell handbags.  Ronnie Bond released a vinyl song The Shopping Song all about Central Milton Keynes. Check it out on YouTube and listen carefully, you can hear Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher singing along in the background.

Margaret Thatcher aside for a moment let’s have a look at some Milton Keynes members of parliament. Where to begin ?  How about Mr Bletchley himself, Herbert Samuel Leon. Not Sir Herbert ? I can hear  you saying. No Sammy was not  given his knighthood until 1911 within

the coronation honours of King George V.

Today Milton Keynes has two members of parliament, one for Milton Keynes South East and one for Milton Keynes North West. In Sammy Leon’s day Milton Keynes did not have an MP, possibly because there was no Milton Keynes. North Buckinghamshire upon which Milton Keynes would be built was part of the Buckingham Constituency.

Sammy was elected as MP for Buckingham in 1891 in a by-election called when Sir Edmund Verney was expelled from the House of Commons. He was re-elected in 1892 but was defeated in the 1895 general election. He was a member of the Liberal Party.

When he was elected in 1891 Mr Bletchley, Herbert Sammy Leon was an opposition member. The Conservatives were in power with Robert Gascoyne-Cecil 3^rd Marquis of Salisbury as Prime Minister. In 1892 Sammy was re-elected serving in government under William Gladstone as Prime Minister. And then until he lost his seat in the 1895 general election under Prime Minister Archibald Primrose 5^th Earl of Rosebery.

I am not sure what Mr Bletchley, some perhaps would prefer me to call him Mr Bletchley and Fenny Stratford, achieved as a member of parliament but whatever it was it is tiny to the vast heritage he and his family gave to we Mkeneyans. You will find his name popping up all over the place within this book.

It was King George V who knighted Herbert Leon making him the First Baronet of Bletchley Park. I do not think that His Majesty visited Bletchley Park but his sons did, or so legend would tell us. The Prince of Wales, later to briefly be King Edward VIII, and his younger brother the Duke of York who on his brother’s abdication became King George VI, both hunted on Leon Land. Legend ?  Could be or it could be truth.

It is not a legend, although he would have preferred it remained an eternal enigma, that Prime Minister Winston Churchill was a frequent wartime visitor to Bletchley Park. Sir Herbert Leon passed on in 1926 and Lady Leon in 1933. I guess it depends how you define computing but as far as we Mkeneyans are concerned Bletchley gave the world the computer.  At the end of the war Churchill did not want a world filled with the computing secrets of Bletchley Park and so ordered the machines destroyed. Personally I wish he would return from the grave and order the destruction of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and all the rest that haunt our present-day society !

Harold Holdness who lived on Shenley Road, not far from Bletchley Park, was a train driver. As I have said Winston Church was a regular visitor to Bletchley Park but so were General Montgomery and in the later years of war General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander Europe. Harold was never told when he had a VIP on board or the identity of his special passenger, being only aware by the extra, and highly guarded carriage coupled to his train.

Looking back Harold wonders which made him more nervous, the German Air Force or having the life of the Prime Minister entrusted to his charge !

I was going to fast forward to 1950 and a very special Mkeneyan Member of Parliament in a moment but before then I want to take you back to the reign of William and Mary. King William

III (1669 to 1702) and Queen Mary II (1689 to 1694) when John Radcliffe was born in 1650 and left us 1^st November 1714 at the age of sixty-three years. He was our Tory member of parliament from 12^th November 1713 until his death the following year.

John Radcliffe was a physician, you will find his name all over the city of Oxford but importantly The John Radcliffe Hospital. Here in Milton Keynes his name is taken by Radcliffe School in Wolverton.

Pre-pandemic, as part of Work Tree mentoring teenagers helping them to make lifestyle and career choices I attended a session at Radcliffe School. This was different to the normal way of Work Tree doing things, it was run by members of the school’s sixth form. Of all the many sessions I was proud to be involved with, across so many schools in Milton Keynes the way these seventeen and eighteen year olds ran the Radcliffe’s session was outstanding.

John Radcliffe I don’t just think, I know you would be proud of our school taking your name.

Now I will indeed fast forward now to 1950 and to another member of parliament who gave his name to a Milton Keynes school but sadly that school abdicated our ancestor’s name.

In the 1950 general election Frank Markham stood as the conservative candidate in the Buckingham Constituency but failed to beat the sitting labour member Aiden Crawley. In the 1951 general election he beat Crawley with a slender majority of fifty-four votes. With further narrow majorities he held the seat in 1955 and 1959 elections. He stood down before the 1964 general election.

He was given a Knighthood on 30^th June 1953 by Queen Elizabeth in her Coronation Honours list.

When Frank Markham entered the House of Commons in 1951 Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. When Churchill stood down in April 1955 Sir Frank Markham served under Sir Anthony Eden until 1957 and then under Harold McMillan until 1963 and then Sir Alec Douglas Home until the 1964 general election.

I twice met Sir Frank Markham in the early 1970’s when I attended lectures he gave at the time of his publishing The History of Milton Keynes and

District. I briefly knew his wife, Lady Markham when I served as the student governor of Milton Keynes Teacher Training College. We used to sit together at meetings. Later when I began my own writing about the heritage of our new city Lady Markham gave me permission to use her late husband’s work.

Yes, I am picking the brains of two former Milton Keynes Mayors as I write this book celebrating our wonderful City and I will be running the text past our two present-day members of parliament but without Sir Frank I would never have explored this genre of writing. There would never have been Not The Concrete Cows Perhaps more importantly there never would have been In Search Of The Leons which reunited the Leon Family with their former family home of Bletchley Park. Sir Frank and Lady Markham I owe you a huge personal debt of gratitude. Thank You.

Sir Frank Markham died on 5^th October 1975. He and Lady Frances are buried in Calverton Road Cemetery Stony Stratford.

When Frank Markham stood down as our member of parliament enter one Robert Maxwell but this paragraph is here to whet your appetite. Watch this space. We are first going now to have to put our time machine into overdrive, Doctor Who and Marty McFly hold on tight, as we go all the way to 1810 when a certain Buckinghamshire landowner by the name of William Selby Lowndes was elected as our member of parliament. For ten years he was conservative member, didn’t they call conservatives Tories back then ?

Just make that a stop off on our TARDIS ride, we are now heading back to Richard Selby-Lowndes who was our MP from 1741 until 1774. George II was on the throne in 1741 and in 1774 it was George III.

Time now to de-whet your appetite.  You have been watching the space I trust.

The now infamous publisher Robert Maxwell was labour member of parliament for Buckingham from 15^th October 1964 until 29^th May 1970. He ran again for election in the March 1974 general election which overturned the conservative government of Edward Heath and put Harold Wilson back in Downing Street. However, Maxwell failed to unseat the conservative Bill Benyon.

I was a student at Milton Keynes Teacher Training College in 1974. Maxwell came to the junior common room to say that Prime Minister Edward Heath was going to visit the Conservative Club in Queensway so would we students please stand outside and  boo the prime minister. Some did but most of us went to cheer Edward Heath. I clearly remember Robert Maxwell dressed in a white jacket standing with a loud speaker hurling political abuse at Prime Minister Heath. Heath ignored the gathering and went straight from his car into the club.

Under suspicious circumstances Robert Maxwell died on 5^th November 1991. He is buried in the Mount of Olives Cemetery in Jerusalem.

So Bob (He liked to be called Bob) Maxwell was our MP. As I have written in other areas of this book, he did more than a little bit for Milton Keynes. You can question his motives if you wish but that does not change what happened. On a personal note I feel a bit sorry for Bob, not my kind of person in any way but when everything went pear-shaped it destroyed him more than physically.

Edward Heath was also not my kind of person but by way of Robert Maxwell I did get to see him at a distance.

So who is next ?

Bill Benyon was elected as member of parliament for Buckingham in 1970. He held on to his seat for the next three elections. At the 1983 election he stood for the new Milton Keynes Constituency. He then retired in 1992. At that election the seat was divided into two: Milton Keynes North East and Milton Keynes South West. He died on 2^nd May 2014 at the age of eighty-four. I have not been able to find where he is buried.

In May 1993 Benyon was awarded an honorary doctorate at the Open University in Milton Keynes. This university was co-founded by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson. A staunch conservative being awarded a degree by a labour founded university. Nice.

A very wealthy man Benyon was not regarded as a good constituency MP with many saying he did not relate to the ordinary man and woman. However, the ordinary men and women of Milton Keynes voted for him as their parliamentary member for twenty-two years making him the longest modern-day serving MP for the area.

I did meet him once. When I lived in Sutton Coldfield before coming to Milton Keynes I had a friend who was the great-great nephew of Howard Carter who discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun. When the teacher training college held a special lecture marking the fiftieth anniversary of the tomb’s discovery I invited my friend to come along. The front row was filled with dignitaries including MP Bill Benyon. My friend and I slipped in near the rear of the hall but when the college principal Doctor Garwood learned of my guest he rearranged the front row so we took place of honour. Bill Benyon was not amused !

Next in office as our MP was Conservative Barry Legg. Who ? Until I began researching this chapter I had forgotten all about him.  Barry Legg was member of parliament for Milton Keynes South East from1992 until he was defeated in 1997 by Doctor Phyllis Starkey.

Phyllis Starkey served as Labour MP for Milton Keynes South West from 1^st May 1997 to 12^th April 2010. She was regarded as a good constituency MP. In May 1997 she served under Tony Blair as prime minister then under Gordon Brown when he moved into Downing Street on 27^th June 2007.

I met her briefly when she was canvassing in the 2010 general election. Standing outside Melrose Avenue shops she engaged me in conversation. I explained that in my opinion Gordon Brown did not understand the lives of ordinary people in Milton Keynes. To this she replied: He does understand and it is my job to make sure he understands. When it became clear I would not be voting for her she firmly brought our conversation to and end and moved off to engage with someone else who may be persuaded to put a cross next to her name.

Maggie Thatcher came to buy her handbags in Milton Keynes. Legend ? The fact is that if it was not for Prime Minister Harold Wilson there would never have been Milton Keynes. Not only did he give us our City but within it he co-founded the world’s largest university

Maggie Thatcher came to buy her handbags in Milton Keynes, well actually it was her coats. John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May did not follow in the footsteps of Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath and the Iron Lady herself but Boris knows how to set his sat nav to Milton Keynes. Boris Johnson, during the pandemic, made a number of visits to University Hospital Milton Keynes. Love him or otherwise I think Mkeneyans should applaud him for so doing.