Who remembers The White Hart pub on Whaddon Way Bletchley ? For a short time a friend of mine was the landlord. He put Billy J Kramer on stage. He asked me to help out on the night of Bill J’s performance. My job was to look after Billy J ! What a privilege that was.
Who remembers some of Billy J Kramer’s hits ? Little Children. Trains and Boats and Planes.
It’s trains and boats and planes I am going to talk about over the course of this week with each related to Milton Keynes. I am dipping into my book MILTONKEYNES THE CITY OF LEGEND to share some special icons within Milton Keynes, some of which are in danger of being lost.
So today let’s start with TRAINS.
Leon Bridge: I guess this is the logical place to start.
Words placed by Sir Herbert Leon on Denbigh Hall Bridge, a legend I discuss in great length within Milton Keynes The City Of Legend.
Who built the London to Birmingham Railway via Denbigh Hall Bridge ? Robert Stephenson was the engineer behind the first inter-city line to be built into London. The Parliamentary Act authorising its construction was passed on 6th May 1833.
Denbigh Hall Bridge aka Leon Bridge is not just a Milton Keynes legend but one of great importance across the entire British railway network.
Three
dates here:
6th
May 1833 – That was a Monday by the way: King William IV was on the throne and Charles Grey 2nd Earl Grey was Prime
Minister. (Did he have anything to do with a cup of tea and the Bletchley
Teabag by any chance !)
September
1838: Queen Victoria was our monarch and William Lamb 2nd Viscount
Melborne was prime minister.
August 1920: George V was on the throne and David Lloyd George was living in 10 Downing Street.
Sir Herbert Leon who was knighted within the coronation honours of King George V was a friend of David Lloyd George who I am sure knew of Leon’s celebrating the importance of Denbigh Hall Bridge.
That importance has long been lost and forgotten. Now in 2023 with King Charles III as our monarch and Rishi Sunak with his feet under the desk at 10 Downing Street I want so much to help restore the words of Sir Herbert Leon and place this Milton Keynes landmark of legend in the place of honour it deserves. SADLY our present member of parliament is not interested.
Let me take a few words from the bridge’s inscription: Park by kind permission of the LRMW railway August 1920. Leon and the railway were not exactly best of friends.
The railway ran alongside one side of the Leon estate and in the days of steam trains soot collected on Sir Herbert’s property. Large metal plates were put in the trees and cleaned every week to try and stop soot collecting in Bletchley Park. However, they failed to stop it entirely and Sir Herbert sued the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company winning the case but being awarded damages of just one shilling (5p).
Night Mail by W H Auden:
This is the night mail
crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters
for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.
Dating from 1936 there are no fewer than nine versions to be found on YouTube.
Listen to the words and you will hear the genius of poet W H Auden beating the rhythm of the train in the verse.
The Night Mail is a 1936 documentary film produced by the General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit. GPO = Royal Mail today. The twenty-four minute film documents the nightly postal train operated by the London Midland and Scottish Railway (The same railway Leon had sued in court) from London to Scotland and the staff who operate it. The route passed through Milton Keynes and the train crossed Leon Bridge.
This was a TPO train. TPO – Travelling Post Office. Mail was collected along the route, sorted by postal workers and dropped off here, there and everywhere from London to Scotland. The train did not need to stop to pick up and collect letters. They were hung out in sacks by the side of the line and scooped up by a net hung out by staff. Sorted letters were bagged up and thrown out to be caught in similar nets.
Letters of thanks, letters from
banks,
Letters of joy from girl and boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or to visit
relations,
And applications for situations,
And timid lovers’ declarations,
And gossip, gossip from all the
nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge
in,
Letters with faces scrawled on the
margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and
aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of
France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands
and Lowlands
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and
the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring,
the adoring,
The cold and official and the heart’s
outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.
If you watch the film on YouTube you will find one of those postal nets is located, as the film’s commentary explains, in Bletchley . This is probably somewhere near where the Lakes Estate stands today.
Great Train Robbery:
Is what I am about to share truth or is it simply a legend ?
8th August 1963, I was twelve years old and remember it well. As the news broke the nation was stunned. Stunned but there was a bit of excitement and even admiration for the bravado of those involved.
A TPO train carrying used bank notes from bank to bank was robbed at Bridego Bridge, South of Milton Keynes. Get it right, there was no Milton Keynes then - South of Bletchley. The robbers got away with £2.6 million - £53.5 million in today's money.
The bridge has not changed a lot in fifty-six years and is, rightfully, a legend. But what is not known is how Bletchley features in this legend.
In 1971, shortly after I moved to live in Milton Keynes, I was given a tour of Bletchley by the man who had been the editor of the Bletchley Gazette at the time of the robbery. He told me the train was towed into sidings at Bletchley Station for the police to investigate. I have since been told that it was not the original train in Bletchley Station but another placed there for the benefit of the media.
Bletchley played a major part in the investigation. Did it ? Or was it just a deception ?
In 1981 I was called to jury service at Aylesbury Crown Court where I sat in the very courtroom where The Great Train Robbers were sentenced. On.8th August 2019, the anniversary of the robbery, I drove to Bridego Bridge and looked at the scene. The bridge has not changed but the railway has, Virgin Trains raced across it at speeds approaching 100mph. The train that was robbed was a TPO - Travelling Post Office. Postal Workers sorted the mail as the train moved along. Mail was picked up and dropped off along the way.
Let me take you back to W H Auden's poem The Night Mail ?
It was a night mail that was robbed. A night mail that was also being used to transport physical bank notes before the age we know today of electronic transfers
When you put a letter into a post box it becomes the property of The King until it is delivered. So, in effect, The Great Train Robbers were stealing from The Queen, Her Majesty Queen Elizbeth II. Ronald Biggs, Charles Wilson, Douglas Goody, Thomas Wisbey, Robert Welch, James Hussey and Roy James - were jailed for 30 years each. Incredibly harsh sentences but set as an example to other would-be train robbers.
It's about ten miles from Bletchley to Bridego Bridge yet both are locked together in history and in legend. Either as the location for the police to examine the train or just for a replica to
keep the media happy The Great Train Robbery has a legendary place in Bletchley and Milton Keynes.
Wolverton Works:
Too often when we talk about Milton Keynes Wolverton gets pushed aside. This is so wrong, so very wrong. It pours legend into our City’s heritage and is at the centre, literally, of our railway system.
The home once upon a time of Wolverton Works maintaining the railway the location of the works was chosen for Wolverton because it was mid-way between Birmingham and London. In the early days of our New City Wolverton Works was one of our biggest employers.
Sadly that has all gone, not into history but into heritage. Wolverton has found a new identity but never forget its importance within our railway. Within that importance is Royal Patronage, it was the home of The Royal Train. Of all the locations across all railway tracks in the country this honour was given to Wolverton.
Bletchley:
Wolverton Railway Station in the north of our New City and in the south Bletchley. Not a lot more in the childhood days of our New City than fields between them, fields with their grazing concrete cows.
In the early days of Milton Keynes Bletchley was the greater used station. As a student teacher in Bletchley Park it was my access point to and from my home in the Midlands. It was also the gateway to London, who remembers the 25p (Or was it 50p) Night Flier return tickets to London. I used this bargain ticket to watch Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar at the Palace Theatre in London.
I
remember a super coffee shop on one of the platforms and I can recall the giant
signal box, known as the power box controlling rail traffic way beyond Milton
Keynes. I never went there but everyone knew of the Railway Club adjacent to
Bletchley Station where only the very best entertainment was ever on offer.
Wellthere you go – Milton Keynes A City Of Legends – SO MANY RAILWAY LEGENDS.
On Wednesday we will let Billy J sing about BOATS. Boats in Milton Keynes ? We are a bit far away from the coast are we not ?
Watch
this space !
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