I am now in the edit ing provcess for my work Milton Keynes The City Of Legend. I wasn't planning this kaleidoscope through this subject but when the idea came to me early one morning i thought: Why not ?
This is still in DRAFT form but have a read and see if you remember some teenage legends.
What’s the kaleidoscope coming up with here then, some Citywide youth club ? No, we will go city wide in a bit looking at youth club heritage but the Milton Keynes I am talking about here is Milton Keynes Village – Milton Keynes Village Youth Club.
When I attended Milton Keynes College of Education in Bletchley Park I was primarily there to qualify as a teacher but I also trained and qualified as a youth and community worker. Forget the community bit, in my second year – 1972 to 1973, we were given an assignment to set up a new youth club. To set up, not to run so our task was firstly to find a location in need of a youth club, then to recruit a management committee and finally to appoint a volunteer youth leader.
Location. Milton Keynes Village had a strong community so it was in this direction our tutor pointed us. Fifty years ago I can remember the chairman was a former farmer, former because Milton Keynes Development Corporation had compulsory purchased his farm and put him out of business. He loved Milton Keynes Village but despised Milton Keynes New City. I rather think his agreeing to work with we students was a way of putting two fingers up to those who had forced him off his land and poured money into his bank account.
In due course Milton Keynes Youth Club opened its doors to village teenagers.
Wilton School, now part of Lord Grey School, used to run a lunchtime youth club to keep its pupils out of trouble during its ninety minute lunch hour.
Before it was sold off, demolished and saw a collection of flats built on its site Saint Martin’s Church Hall. Once a week in 1971 AND 1972 it hosted one evening a week Lakes Youth Club. Geography was a bit wrong, Saint Martin’s Church Hall was nowhere near the Lakes Estate !
In complete contrast and a mega legend in its own time was Bletchley Youth Centre on Derwent Drive, West Bletchley. At its height two full-time youth workers were employed running a huge range of fun activities for local teenagers.
At the other end of our City and a mirror of its Bletchley cousin was Newport Pagnell Youth Club.
Teenagers in our New City were well provided with generous funding from Buckinghamshire County Council’s education budget.
When Bletchley Leisure Centre opened within it was the Compass Club. When this location opened I feared it would attract kids away from Bletchley Youth Centre but our New City’s expansion even its southern tip there was room for both. And more.
I wonder if any of my readers grew up living in Napier Street, Bletchley. Who remembers Napier Street Kids.
Who knows where Bowlers Bridge is ? Who remembers Bowlers Bridge Youth Club ?
Interaction with its canal boat and pony riding. A huge legend in its own time of the 1980’s.
Peartree Bridge Youth Centre, on Peartree Bridge of course. This was also the office for BAYC – Buckinghamshire Association of Youth Clubs.
All long gone. Are there youth clubs in the City of Milton Keynes today ?
In the 1990’s Bucks County Council even funded a detached youth worker. Based at Leon School his role was to work with teenagers in Water Eaton and the Lakes Estate.
To
end this little kaleidoscope let me ask the question again: Are there youth
Clubs in the City of Milton Keynes today ?
Or is everything on-line by way
of smart-phones !
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