Milton Dreams - The City That Never Was - Education

EDUCATION – A GIFT FOR LIFE:

When I wrote not the concrete cows all those years ago in 1994 I had a chapter entitled education a gift for life and more. black chapter began with this opening paragraph at some future date I'm hoping to Chronicle the history of education in Milton Keynes within a series of features for the Milton Keynes Citizen. II is a full and fascinating tale it will go something like this.  

I while ago I saw a sticker on the back window of a car which boldly stated if you could read this then thank a teacher. I will now share with you the chapter from my book not the concrete cows and then I will talk a bit about how education has changed over the decade.

How very true that statement is if you can read this then thank a teacher without the national ability to read we writers would soon be out of a job as would all newspaper and book publishers the likes of WH Smith and John Menzies would join the dole queue and we may as well all go back to living in caves wearing animal skins and hunting with clubs.

Sixty years ago schools throughout the area held a special celebration to commemorate education over the past one hundred years.  Souvenir programme for printed, children had special lessons, concert's were given and a number of educational visits were organised. But education in Milton Keynes dates back much, much further than 1934. (Remember this text comes from Not The Concrete Cows published in 1994.)  

There is a record of a Chantry Chapel being built onto the church in Bletchley in the early 1300’s and part of the Chantry Priest’s business was a keeper free school for the poor of the parish.

In 1388 at the Manor Court held in fenny Stratford a William Barton claimed that he was owed 18 pence, seven and a half pence, in today's money for services as a teacher. The debt was upheld on ordered to be settled  in full.

After the War of the Roses education in North Buckinghamshire began to significantly develop. There is an entry in the Bletchley registrar dated May 15th 1587 recording the marriage of William de Schoolam of Bletchley to Joan Pennington.  William taught at the school supported by the lord of the manor.

Seven years earlier a school are been established in the North Chapel of Milton Keynes Church, the teacher had to supplement his income by working as the village sieve maker and teachers today think they are hard done by !

Lands near to Buckingham were rented out in 1423 at thirteen shillings and four pence per year for used by grammar school.  The exact location is uncertain but possibly the school was Thornton.  Initially it had just six students.  In 1574 the endowment the school was receiving from the lord of the manor, Roberts Ingleton, was transferred to the Royal Latin School at Buckingham.  That particular school,l of course, is still very much in existence.

Doctor John Radcliffe, who died in 1714, left in his will a great deal of property to University College Oxford for funding medical training. Radcliffe Observatory Hospital and library in Oxford also owe their initial existence to his generosity. In addition the good doctor financed the enlarging of Saint Bartholomew's Hospital in London. the Radcliffe School in Wolverton takes his name from this particular philanthropic doctor.

The Reverend W Cole recorded in 1712 that twenty children in the Bletchley and Fenny Stratford area were being taught in the charge of the church.

In a list of chantry schools within Buckinghamshire, publishing 1720, a school is stated to have been erected in Bletchley although the exact location is uncertain.

A few years later Doctor Brown Willis maintained at his own expense schools in Bletchley, Fenny Stratford and in Whaddon.

On the 10th of October 1726 there was held the first meeting at Newport Pagnell of a society to promote education among the poor of the Newport Hundreds.

Within the coming of the industrial revolution, putting the area on main routes of road, rail and canal, another significance forward step was taken. October 1811 saw the foundation of the national Society for Educating in the Church. This society contributed, in 1815, the sum of thirty pounds towards building a school in Fenny Stratford.  This was then maintained by the local clergy, In 1819 there were one hundred and seven pupils on the roll with the Mr Webb as headmaster.  He was paid the princely sum of 50 pounds a year as his salary.

In 1838 the Bletchley school united to the National Society.  In 1840 land was acquired to build a new school.  This was sold by Sir Philip Duncan to the Rector and Church Wardens for just five shillings 25p in today's money.  The school stood on Watling Street near to Fenny Stratford Railway Station.

In 1887 the premises were transferred to a school board and 204 students were recorded on roll.

The Fenny Stratford School Board was due to open for business during the last week of August 1887 but was delayed until September the 12th due to an outbreak of typhoid fever in the area. The headmaster of the day recorded the epidemic in the school log book but did not note down how many children were taken out or indeed died.

Local legend has it that this new school building was cited upon a plague pit dating from the middle ages.

Records of schools in the South of the area are still in existence and give a full picture of all that went on. The curriculum at best in the late in nineteenth century can be described as “thin”. The log book records all the poems and songs that children new but pays little attention to mathematics, reading and writing.

Official reports over the next few years criticised the standards and there is a note of at least one teacher being dismissed for failing to bring children up to the expected test levels.

In the north of the area, however, standards were thriving.  In Wolverton the directors of the railway took a keen interest in the schooling of all local children, seeing it as an investment to provide for a well-educated future workforce.

Is September 1847 the directors report stated: The school,  which is very near to the works, is surrounded by a small court and garden.  In the centre is a room for girls from 5 to 9 years of age who are instructed by a governess in reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, grammar, history and needlework. Here we counted fifty-five clean healthy faces. In the east wing there were ninety-five stout, athletic boys of various ages learning mathematics and drawing, including quadratic equations, Elucid, land surveying, trigonometry and even conic sections.

In spite of the high proportion of Milton Keynes children educated today within private schools no traditional public schools were established in our area like of Bedford to the east and Eton to the south.

The Rev W T Sankey became vicar of St Giles, Stony Stratford, in 1859 and founded Saint Paul's School in the town.  It costs a staggering £40,000 opening with two hundred boys and very soon established a sound reputation producing many distinguished pupils.

The boys followed a strict routine with morning roll call at 5:45am !  Work began immediately with breakfast not until 8:30am. Tuition continued until lunchtime with games during the afternoon.  Lessons then were held in the evening from 6:00pm to 8:30pm.  Prefects had the power to fag younger boys and corporal punishment was in daily use.  When Sankey died these were taken to excess and the school declined. It eventually closed in 1895.

Another private school in Stony Stratford was run between 1840 and 1870 on the corner of Market Square and Mill Lane by Joseph Hambling. Charles Dickens met him on one visit to the area and based the character of Mr Turveydrop in Bleak House upon him.

Bletchley Conservative Club in Queens may also began its life as a private school.

Sir Herbert Leon and his young wife Fanny came to Bletchley in 1882 and busied themselves in every aspect of local affairs. Although the Leons educated their own sons at Eton they became increasingly involved in the Bletchley Schools. Their latter years coincided with the appointment of Ernest Cook as headmaster and education in Bletchley thrived.

In recognition of their efforts Headmaster David Bradshaw and his board of governors changed the name of Bletchley School to Leon School.  Although the new buildings were erected in the south of the town in the early 1970’s the school retains the name.

Ernest Cooke retired at the end of summer term in 1853 after twenty-nine years service. His contribution to education in the south of the city had been tremendous and long lasting.

Harold Wilson's Labour Government of the 1960s introduced comprehensive education to the nation. Although the rest of Buckinghamshire retain grammar schools the socialist councils within the New City managed to turn the area’s schools into the non-selective comprehensive style.  They appeared to work very well but the debate and demand for grammar school refuses to go away.  As a result private education in Milton Keynes currently thrives.

Gosh !  I found that fascinating. I wrote that some time in 1993 ahead of publication in1994. I remember researching using The North Bucks Times, school log books from Leon School and the writings of Sir Frank Markham. Lady Markham gave me permission to use his work. Their daughter was at the time Headmistress of Castles School in West Blethley. I am writing now in June 2020, I am reflecting back to 1993/4 and thinking how I can share my experience of schools within the developing new city. I am smiling. To transcribe this chapter from my book Not The Concrete Cows I am using a laptop which will allow me to read from my book and the computer puts the words onto the page. If you find any typo’s administered corporal punishment can be administered to the laptop and not to Yours Truly !

Education during the development of Milton Keynes was under the control of Buckinghamshire County Council with offices in Aylesbury. Buckingham was, of course, the original county town but following the demise of The Duke of Buckingham everything moved to a more central location in Aylesbury.

My own teaching career was within the secondary sector. There were just five secondary schools in Milton Keynes in the early 1970’s. In Wolverton there was The Radcliffe School and in Newport Pagnell Ouesdale School. Both remain to this day. Denbigh School was then sited in Cornwall Grove, West Bletchley. Now it can be found in Shenley. Leon School, where I spent so many happy days, was in Fern Grove on The Lakes Estate. The Lakes was not a Milton Keynes Development Corporation initiative but a joint venture with Bletchley Urban District Council and The Greater London Council. Also in Bletchley there was Wilton School and Bletchley Grammar School. So Wolverton and Newport Pagnell each had a school while Bletchley had four.

Bletchley Urban District Council was a Labour council and pro comprehensive. Bletchley Grammar School. Eventually they were to merge as Lord Grey on the Wilton School site. Lord Grey of Wilton. It was not an easy merger, there were prejudices both within the staff and pupils with loyalties to their former schools.

Starting my teacher training course at Milton Keynes of Education we students spent the second week of our first term in a school on “Orientation Week”. I was sent to Wilton School. I loved it. Now returning with a programme called Worktree I visit Lord Grey – WILTON SCHOOL and sit in the school hall which has changed little since I knew it from the early 1970’s.

I was thrilled when I was assigned Wilton School for my second teaching practice. The headmaster was a Mr Smith.  I remember he drove a red sports car, far too young for his age. Do you know what a choke on a car was ? In those days all cars had manual chokes to help start the engine. Mr Smith spoke to me as a student teacher, I can so clearly remember him saying: Discipline is like a choke on a car, not enough and the car will not start, too much and the engine will stall.  You have got discipline just right. I am not going to be the head of The Lord Grey School but if you want a job there I will make sure you get one.

It was obvious that the merging of Wilton and Bletchley Grammar was not going to be easy and I did not want to be a part of the chaos. Chaos there was !

I ended up at Leon School. It was built for a catchment area of the Lakes Estate, Central Bletchley and Fenny Stratford. However, with the new city estates being put up in the south of the designated area our catchment area expanded to include: Bean Hill, Netherfield, Coffee Hall and Tinkers Bridge. As I recall things there was a bit of pupil snobbery with Coffee Hall being the cool place to live.

When Stantonbury School opened that was the school every pupil wanted ton go to and no traditional teacher wanted to be on the staff.  Corporal punishment was in use in every other school in Milton Keynes but not Stantonbury where it was publically disapproved of.  There was no uniform and the pupils all called their teachers by their first name. You needed to be a pretty left wing modernist to want to be on the staff of Stantonbury School !

I am not sure if this is a legend too far but I believe a scene in the movie Superman was filmed at Stantonbury School. The school was given a mini-‘bus in payment by the production company. True ?  Perhaps.

Leon lost its pupils from the new estates when Sir Frank Markham School opened. I was not happy about that and never forgave the school for robbing us of some great teenagers. I have said how I was allowed to use Sir Frank’s work as I put together Not The Concrete Cows. I met Sir Frank a couple of times and while student governor of Milton Keynes College of Education I knew Lady Markham.  I often wonder what Sir Frank would have thought about the school named after him. I think he would have been proud.

So with the merger of Wilton and Bletchley Grammar into a single Lord Grey, Leon, Denbigh, Ousedale, Radcliffe, Sir Frank and Stantobury there were seven secondary schools in Milton Keynes. How many are there today ?  I do not have a clue.

We have all this academy stuff, I refuse to address any school as XYZ Academy, it will always be XYZ School.  Schools have Headmasters or Headmistresses, they do not have head teachers and they certainly do not have principles. NO that is not a typo even if these pseudo heads do call themselves principals.

When I go into schools today as part of Worktree to help teenagers make lifestyle and career choices I am sometimes asked why I left teaching. I am careful not to put down any modern-day colleague but say teaching was moving in one direction and I was moving in another.

When Tony Blair became prime minister his spin doctors said he was asked what the three most important things were for his government.  He supposedly replied Education, Education, Education.  If indeed he did say that then he lied. What he meant was Destroy education, Destroy education, Destroy education.

Today we do not have an education system, we have  school system. Targets. League Tables. Well done Tony Blair and the flip-flop governments that followed you. But despite all this we have some fantastic schools in Milton Keynes. Education is what happens outside the government imposed schoolings. A good school deals with league tables, budgets, examinations, targets, putting ticks in boxes then orbits the important education around it.

There is one school in particular I go into as part of Worktree. When I say to teenagers: You attend the very best school in Milton Keynes they look at me and say Yes, we know !

I began writing here about Chantry Chapel being built onto the church in Bletchley in the early 1300’s, more than seven hundred years ago.  I am proud to have been a part, a very small part, of education in Milton Keynes during those years. I wonder if someone in seven hundred years time, in 2720 will slot my name into a similar account as I am now here sharing with you !

Can you believe this rubbish !

TUESDAY 16th JUNE 2020:

As non essential shops opened yesterday people flocked in their non social distancing masses to grab whatever rubbish was on sale, rubbish with they have been perfectly able to manage without for three months.

But add to this somethings which I find so offensive I am struggling to grab hold of the words to explain my utter contempt.

In Milton Keynes where I live we have a labour controlled council. The conservative party has started a petition asking the labour council to give two hours free parking so people can put themselves at risk by going to Primark and all the other low grade retail establishments in the shopping centre !

For the most convenient parking spaces in Milton Keynes it costs £2 an hour. £2 an hour if you want to access the law by visiting the police station. Justice is taxed at £2 a hour if you need to use the courts. That tax extends to knowledge should you wish to use the library and to faith if you want to go to church. There is even a £2 an hour tax if you wish to access democracy and visit Milton Keynes Council's offices.

Incidentally, when Milton Keynes Development Corporation laid down its foundation stones it said that there were to be no parking charges in the new city. Milton Keynes Council trashed that with its rip off charges. 

So the conservative politicians want to set aside the parking charges not to honour the Milton Keynes Development Corporation's plan, the sad politicians are not interested in honouring people's right to the law, justice, learning, faith and democracy. NO NO NO !  It's all about MONEY MONEY MONEY.

I have not been to The Centre MK for well more than three years. I refuse to patronise the council's rip off parking charges and I refuse patronise the climate cowboy with its hideous carbon footprint. You could pay me £2 an hour to park there and I would still say NO !

Set aside this rubbish, shop locally or on-line. Boycott Central Milton Keynes and make sure the rubbish of this political petition FAILS FAILS FAILS !

Milton Dreams - The City That Never Was - Chapter Twenty-Six

CHAPTER TWENTY – SIX – Milton Keynes London's Third Airport

I will begin this chapter by typing up some words from my 1994 book Not The Concrete Cows. I will then add a few 2020 thoughts to the text. Oh, here we go..............

Seasoned travellers of the airways will be familiar with the coded baggage tags that ensure your suitcases arrive via the same aircraft with their owner at the correct destination:

LHR = London Heathrow   SFO = San Francisco   LAX = Los Angeles  JFK = New York Kennedy   LGW = London Gatwick

But what about LMK = London Milton Keynes ?  Daily flights to New York, Cairo, Rome, Bombay and a hundred other far away destinations ?

Don't smile because this was very nearly the case !  If the now infamous Robert Maxwell, one time labour member of parliament for area, had had his way intercontinental jets would constantly be roaring overhead.

Thirty years ago (That was as of 1994) advance planning was calling for a new airport to relieve the strain that anticipated demand would place upon Heathrow and Gatwick in the next century. (That's this century now isn't it ?) One of the best options looked to be the building of London's third airport at Cubblington just south of the area designated for the construction of a new town.

Within the triangle of roads between Stewkley, Wing and Cubblington is the site of a former World War II airfield from which the Royal Air Force flew against the might of the Third  Reich. It is upon this site that the proposed airport was planned, only six  miles from Milton Keynes. But the project intended extending to a staggering seven and a half thousand acres, bulldozing everything in the way. The destruction would have included obliterating the entire village of Stewkely, claimed to be the longest village in England, and rehousing its eleven hundred residents.

North Buckinghamshire is already on the Atlantic  route with dozens of heavy jets passing overhead every day but these are all but these are all well on their way to their initial cruising altitude, flying sufficiently high to be relatively unnoticed. Had the airport come here instead of Stanstead then living in Milton Keynes would have been akin to residing at the bottom of the runway. Perhaps Milton Keynes would have become a replica of Crawley to the south of Gatwick. Instead of a multi-industry the city would have almost entirely dependant upon the airport for its employment. It is estimated that fifty thousand people would have worked at the airport !

It was the most efficiently organised public protest since the Anti Corn Law League of 1839 that saved us. The outward manifestation was a host of signs reading NO AIRPORT HERE. They sprang up overnight along roads and adjacent to the railway between Bletchley and Leighton Buzzard. But the organisation went much deeper.

The WING AIRPORT RESISTANCE ACTION (WARA) under the chairmanship of  Demond Fennel, later to become Justice Fennel and head of the Kings Cross Enquirt, and Evelyn de Rothschild, from the family of merchant bankers, as treasurer, the local population banded together to prevent at all costs an airport being built on their doorstep. Many other famous names like Johnny Dankworth, Cleo Lane and Roald Dahl, who all lived in the area threw their unqualified support. (Robert Maxwell, millionaire publisher and MP, joined in but history now shows that his motives and intentions were decidedly unclear.)

They knew only too well that they had an uphill task ahead of them for in every way Cubblington/Wing was the best site for the airport. Had it come to North Buckinghamshire, London Milton Keynes International Airport may not have become London's third airport at all but the COUNTRY'S FIRST AIRPORT ! There would have been non need for Luton, Birmingham or even East Midlands Airports and much of the traffic would have been stolen away from Heathrow.

I recently spent a pleasant evening with WARA executive committee member Dennis Skinner in his Witchurch home, enjoying his hospitality about a roaring log fire, as he explained the airport perimeter fence had been been planned for no more than a hundred yards from where we were sitting !  It is his belief that Milton Keynes would have needed to expand south to meet the airport, swallowing up everything as far as Leighton Buzzard. The resulting conurbation, some planners saw it reaching right down to Aylesbury, would be little like the new city we know today.

On another evening I chatted with Farmer Morris and his wife from Manor Farm, Hoggeston realising we were right in the middle of where the main runway would have been. Their family has farmed land in the village for ten generations dating back to the 1700's. What a personal tragedy it would have been to fall victim to a compulsory purchase order.

Eighty year old Rector of Dunton, the Reverend Hubert Sillitoe - brother of Sir Percy Sillitoe head of wartime MI5, preached Hell, Fire and Damnation against all airport planners. He was a popular character, if a little eccentric, and achieved fame in the Sun newspaper who dubbed him "A Modern-day Elijah".  They quoted one of his speeches".......this damned sacrilege we will fight on the doorsteps of our homes, in the fields of our farms, at churchyard gates and church doors !"  A later edition of the paper had on its front page a picture of the campaigning cleric setting fire to a giant copy of the government's report and reprinting his prayer..."that these inhuman and sacrilegious proposals be so absolutely rejected and reduced to flames of the fire shall reduce this copy of the Roskill Report."  The reporter went on to describe how the flames leaped upward as the brass band played the funeral march. But others attracted less favourable media attention. There were those who thought the best thing to do would be to load up their tractors with manure and dump the lot on Downing Street.  Mr Justice Roskill, detailed by Harold Wilson's government to study the various sites for the airport, actually received death threats. Some of the protest posters and cartoons in the national press made no secret of the intention many had of actually turning the campaign in o a literal fight if talking failed ! mannered man himself, he doubted if he would have actually been involved

I asked Mr Morris if he thought people would have really engaged in hand to hand fighting with the bulldozers. A mild mannered man himself, he doubted if he would have actually been involved but was certain others would. WARA not only had to tackle the politicians and bureaucrats but also to disassociate themselves from any threats of violent activities if they ere to maintain credibility.

The membership of Robert Maxwell was also hardly an asset to the group. Maxwell, as recent events now only too clearly show, was a past master when it came to playing one person off against another. He played WARA off against his own political party and the local community against the planners but never failed to keep his own business interests uppermost. It was reported in the Guardian on 15th June 1970 that Maxwell said to a Bletchley factory worker: "Let's get Milton Keynes first; if we can have the airport as well so much the better."

Three days later he lost his seat to Bill Benyon, so ending his parliamentary career and subsequently left the executive committee of WARA.

Dennis Skinner is convinced that it was the election of a conservative government, under Prime Minister ted Heath, that finally saved the day. Wing was the best, was the best, but also the most expensive option, in his opinion a Wilson government would have had little regard for the cost. Tories, on on the other hand, weighed finances with rather more care and eventually went for the cheaper Stanstead project.

WARA attacked the finances of the proposals on every front. It strived all along to avoid becoming a political body, something that frustrated Robert Maxwell, but to truly represent everyone who was against the airport. This included Buckinghamshire County Council, The Milton Keynes Development Corporation and just about every living soul within twenty miles of the proposed airport.  There was little to be gained by stressing the environmental issues which carried no weight in the swinging sixties. Instead the organisation employed professionals to undertake their own investigations then question every facet of the government's Roskill Report.

Their arguments were presented to every member of parliament whose final decision found against Wing, WARA managed to convince them that the costing was wrong, indeed it was.  Nearly a quarter of a century later it has become clear that a London Milton Keynes International Airport, as well as handling more than its fair share of business and cargo traffic, would have developed into the nation's number one holiday airport. Nobody in the 1960's quite foresaw such an explosion in leisure travel.

There was a victory torchlight procession from Stewkley Church on 26th April 1971, a tree planted in the churchYard at Whitchurch proclaims; THIS TREE IS PLANTED TO THE GLORY OF GOD AND IN THANKFULNESS FOR HAVING BEEN SPARED THE 3rd LONDON AIRPORT 26th November 1972.  Buckinghamshire County Council planted a spinney at Cublington upon the site originally intended for the terminal building.

Little now remains from the actual protest, the signs have been taken down, the graffiti that once adorned motorway bridges has been sponged off but in the barn at \Manor Farm where many of the rallys were held there is still a mural demanding NO AIRPORT. When I saw it a couple of weeks ago a herd of cattle ambled about their winter quarters oblivious to the fact that they could have been jumbo jets.

But would Milton Keynes be a better place at double its size and serving one of the world's major airports ? Perhaps, perhaps not: it is difficult to say. During the campaign the activities of WARA can not have escaped the notice of teenager Richard Branson, then a boarder at Stowe School near Buckingham. Would it be better if Virgin Atlantic, together with British Airways, American Airlines and all the rest, brought their vast needs for employment to the area ?

next time you are sitting in the traffic on the M25 as you head off on holiday via Heathrow or Gatwick you can weigh up the advantages and disadvantages then decide for yourself ?

1994, wow was it that long since I wrote Not The Concrete Cows. I remember so well all the people I have spoken about picking their brains to gather information. The obvious question to now ask is: Would Milton Keynes have achieved city status if it had been an airport. In my opinion NO ! Although the dream of Milton Keynes one day becoming a city is a far away dream it may still happen. Airport ?  Nobody is ever going to make an airport a city !

One step forward - How many backwards ?

MONDAY 15th June 2020

Am I dreaming or did I see Bros Johnson on television yesterday ? Do you know who Boris Johnson is ?  Well it's one giant step for our nation that he has come out of hiding. Boris let's see more of you, let's see some leadership.

One step forward, how many backwards ?  Leadership does not mean re-opening the shops today. We may talk about social distancing but following the Dominic Cummings scandal people are only giving lip-service to two yards !  Money is pushing this to become 1 yard, makes no difference we may as well make it half an inch.

Please not YARDS - FEET - INCHES. We have left the infernal european union (deliberately spelt with small case letters) - we won the Battle of Waterloo so we will use proper measurements shall we.

NO !  Doing that is racist.  

I went to our local police station earlier this morning to drop of a card for the family and colleagues of a police sergeant who died last week. Some idiot had painted black lives matter on the steps up to the police station. Just how low can we get ? I am getting sick, tired and utterly fed up with all this racist rubbish ! The black lives matter is inciting racism.

For something I am campaigning about in our failing justice system I found this on Wikipedia:    in 2006; Governor Phil Taylor banned officers from displaying the English Flag as he was fearing that it may upset the foreign prisoners.

How long before we enter the inevitable second spike in the pandemic ?  When we start to come out from that point I hope we do so only with steps forward.

Racist !

SUNDAY 14th JUNE 2020

What do you think about all this Black Lives Matter stuff that is going on right now ?

In my opinion this is more dangerous than the corona virus pandemic. I really can not understand the agenda people are trying to play out ?  What is the point of it all.

Right now the black lives matter campaigners are creating hatred and racism which did not exist a month ago. What are they doing and why are they doing it ?

Compared to where we were when I was I was a teenager Britain is not a racist society. We may not have reached the point where we are oblivious to a person's colour but we are well along the way. Black lives matter has, in my opinion, seriously undone much of what has been achieved.

We can not turn back history, we can not impose twenty-first attitudes on times in the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. On the subject of slavery who captured the black men, women and children then sold them to white slave traders ?  Black people did !

Black lives matter. Yes they do but they do not matter more than white lives, brown lives ALL LIVES.  By singling out black lives the protesters are giving us a new form of racism. A racism which is horrible.

I have never been a racist as my life history shows and I do not want right now colour rammed into my face. What is happening has not turned me into a racist and I trust it never will but please stop trying.

It is a cliche to say there is only one race, the human race but it is true. Please stop trying to sub divide the race. If a policeman who just happens to be white kills a person who just happens to be black please do not bring colour into it. Deal with the situation, do not use it as an excuse to riot and destroy property, do not use it as an excuse to injure people. Do not use it to drag past society into the present. Do not use it to generate a new twenty-first century brand of racism.

I love PEOPLE and colour does not come into it. As a young man photographs show I was handsome and good looking. Today I am an ugly old sod who hates the way he looks.  I truly think I would look better with a dash of colour in my face. Why do white people lay out in the sun trying to get a tan or spend a fortune in salons trying to get a tan ?  Because a splash of colour on the skin looks good.

If I could not be an Englishman I would like to be Barbadian and live on the beautiful island of Barbados. I would not want to be a white Barbadian, I would like to be a black Barbadian. Why ?  Because it is the black Barbadians who make the country so friendly and beautiful.

ALL THIS RUBBISH - What is happening is more dangerous than the corona virus. STOP IT !

Kindness

SATURDAY 13th JUNE 2020:

I have had three mega stress filled day in a time where stress for us all is the basic norm. Having poured a glass of orange juice over my laptop so destroying it I purchased a replacement from Argos but that was faulty !  I have so much work to do I am now tackling everything using a laptop Alan Turin would have thought a bit outdated !  Now I am trying to use the Google updated Blogger which does not work properly !

So all that !  Let me tell you about some lovely acts of kindness.

DREAMSAI has given me a load of PPE which my council and local police can use when engaging with individual members of the community where those individuals do not have PPE.

DREAMSAI is, of course, the group I have been working with running our LUNCH OF LOVE

until lock down closed our doors. One of the things I need my computer to do is to take all of the brainstorm of ideas out of my head and put them into order for friends at DREAMSAI to read.

How did we manage to live our lives without computers ?

A goof friend is working to repair my machines. Thank You MARK.

As I write today's blog I am listening to the podcast from my Thursday radio show - CLICK HERE and join me. I played all of the music for Dreamsai but particularly to celebrate the 11th birthday of a lovely young lady who during

lock down has been doing sponsored chores about her home, she has been baking cakes for neighbours. As she baked the cakes the biggest ingredient was LOVE, All the cleaning cloths she used about the house in her sponsored chores were cloths of love.

Raising more than two hundred pounds that money has been given to DREAMSAI to help spread its love.

I need a working computer so I can continue my writing. I have two books on the go:

This blog which I plan to publish when "normality" returns. If ever.

I am having a lot of fun writing MILTON DREAMS THE CITY THAT NEVER WAS. This is a follow up to my 1994 book about the adolescent Milton Keynes - NOT THE CONCRETE COWS. I think that work may well be finished and on my Amazon Bookshelf by early July.  I am having a lot of fun writing it but I want it out of the way so I can concentrate on a third project GETTING TO KNOW MY GRANDDAD.

The central character is a disaffected and underachieving teenager who is curious to find out why his granddad is so incredibly wealthy. Richard decides to write a blog as he undertakes his investigation.

He learns that his granddad, who is also called Richard is Trickie Dickie and The Diamonds. He assumes his grandfather was a diamond dealer. NO. Trickie Dickie was the lead singer in The Diamonds. An aging teacher at school, Pappy Newman, tells his pupil that if the Beatles had not come along British Rock and Roll Singer Trickie Dickie would have been bigger than Elvis Presley.

Trickie Dickie was born in October 1940. I am setting the story in 2019 to avoid the pandemic. In November 2019 Richard will celebrate his 16th birthday. His blog becomes a time travel adventure as he goes back to become a teenage rock and roll star alongside his granddad.

No longer a disaffected and under achieving teenager Richard becomes the twenty-first century's King of Rock and Roll.

Pure Evil

FRIDAY 12th JUNE 2020

I HATE MICROSOFT. Well everybody does don't they !

The day before yesterday I knocked a glass of orange juice over my laptop totally destroying it.  I purchased this replacement which I am now using Argoss click and collect. Before slagging off Microsoft I want to praise Argos for it's brilliant level of customer service. THANK YOU.

Two words which do not exist within Microsoft's lexicon are CUSTOMER and SERVICE. My new laptop comes complete with Microsoft malware which prevents any programme being downloaded unless it comes from the geek-failing windows collection. I can use Google Chrome but ONLY within Microsoft Bing Bong or what ever it is called. To install properly I have to switch off what Microsoft calls S.  But Microsoft refuses point blank to tell a user what S is let alone give advice as to switching the malware off.

Well anyway here I am writing today's blog page in ESCAPING FROM ARMAGEDDON. I am not sure that here in Britain we are escaping. Thing is if the technology of track and trace which is failing big time is run on Windows then it has failure built in as standard. If government scientific advisors re using Microsoft then Armageddon is smiling. Hey, now here's something for you to think about - Is Boris Cummings-Johnson a Microsoft robot ?  If he is then does that not explain a lot ?

I want to get my book Milton Dreams The City That Never Was finished and published as soon as possible as I have an idea for a new writing project - GETTING TO KNOW MY GRANDDAD.

I am setting this story in the year 2019 so predating the chaos we are all living in. The central character is Richard a disaffected and underachieving sixteen year old. His parents and his two older brothers are very successful in their lives but Richard is not sure he can handle success, it does not come natural to him. His grandfather on his mother's side is incredibly wealthy, he drives an Aston Martin, lives in a massif house and spends the cold winter days in The Caribbean. 

Richard is curios about his grandfather so sets off to investigate his wealth and record his findings in a blog. The investigation and blog take him on a time travel adventure discovering his grandfather to be Tricky Dickie And The Diamonds. So that's it, Richard's granddad made his money as a diamond trader !  Or did he ?

Damn !

11th June 2020

DAMN !  Yesterday I knocked a glass of orange squash over my laptop and destroyed it !  I am using an antiquated former laptop to write today's blog page.  THANK YOU Argos I have clicked and later today I will collect.

Well yesterday Boris emerged from hiding and took the Downing Street Briefing, a bit muddled but he did make an attempt. Then Laura Sillyface ploughed in with her normal low IQ asking questions Borris had already given.

Does this mean we are back to normal ?  Normal within these silly times ?

When I get by new laptop tomorrow I will attempt to answer.

Rudderless ship

WEDNESDAY 10th JUNE 2020

We are on board a rudderless ship zig-zagging across the Sea of Peril !

Another 286 deaths in the UK yesterday bringing the total corona virus death figure to 40,833 !

Each and every one a real person with  a life which has been sacrificed to the virus. How many of these 40,833 lives have been lost due to the rudderless ship of failure aka The Boris Johnson Government.

Another 286 lives lost yesterday, 286 lives where today family and friends are grieving with no love and support from the rudderless ship of our government.

We have seen a U-turn on the re-opening of schools but the government boasts the likes of McDonald's can re-open. Why ?  Have we not managed perfectly well without fast food ?  AH MONEY !  McDonald's has a rudder on its ship and has blasted its way through government policy.

The government is ceasing funding to protect of homeless rough-sleepers, ending on the 5th June.  Please do not tell me the rudderless ship is doing anything for their long-term future.

Pre the pandemic the biggest failing department of government was the Justice Department able to boast an 80% failure rate. The rudderless ship is steering it now towards 100% ! While others are going the extra mile the sad, pathetic wimps are hiding their failure behind corona virus. Staff withing the injustice department are working from home but nobody is doing anything to process the post which is every day mounting higher and higher.  SAD PATHETIC WIMPS.

I have signed an on-line petition demanding that car registration numbers are printed on all fast food take away bags.  YES, I do support this but here's a better idea - impose a tax on every single packaging item - £1 per item. OK - a quarter pounder meal from McDonalds: 1 the box containing the burger. 2 the box containing the fries. 3 the bag containing ll this lot. 4 5 McDonald's will give you a fistfull of napkins but here let's say they give you two. 6 7 8 a cup of Coke, the top of the cup and the straw. That's 8 items - £8 tax which can be used to fund positive things.  How about that Boris ?

There really isn't any doubt is there that this government and its uninspiring prime minister will go down in history as one of our nation's biggest failures.

I went to do my weekly shop yesterday. Social distancing, what social distancing ?

People have gone crazy saying black lives matter, OK yes they do but ALL lives matter and right now the 4,833 lives which have been lost due to the failing navigation of our rudderless ship matter.  I am not suggesting a riot but I am suggesting a peaceful and meaningful mutiny to get the ship properly on course.

Nob Heads !

9th June 2020

There is only one bigger failure in this world than Prime Minister Boris Cummings - Johnson and that's the nob heads at Cannon - Cannon as in printers ! In my book The Ramblings Of A Silly Old Man I dedicate an entire chapter to the hideous operations of a Cannon printer !  I am right now trying to print off this week's music quiz but Cannon is doing everything it possibly can to frustrate me. Tomorrow's radio show is Wake Up With The Classics, I will be playing the finale from The 1812 Overture complete with cannons which I plan fire right up the backside of my computer printer !

I left the radio studio this morning and headed straight to Morrissons for the weekly shop. The supermarket was rather quiet compared to normal. This stupid Cannon printer is using the ink I got along with bananas, cheese and loaves of bread.

On way home I switched the radio on and heard that schools will not now be opening until September. Is that right ?  Mr Cummings-Johnson have you changed your mind ?  

If we ever get back to a normal where I can jump on an aircraft and nip to San Francisco the last airline I would ever use would be Ryan Air but yesterday I watched Michael O'Leary speaking on television about the fourteen day self isolation all travelers coming into the UK must follow. So you get off Crappy Jet, fill in a form saying where you will self-isolate. You then get onto a train, tube or 'bus spreading the virus if you have it all the way to where you will be self-isolating for fourteen months. DOH ! Is it mandatory to print off the form for self isolating using a Canon printer ?

Hey Boris Cummings, Hey Dominic Johnson are you shareholders in Cannon printers by any chance ?

Milton Dreams -The City That Never Was - Chapter Foiurteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Maggie Came To Milton Keynes The Queen Came To Bletchley

Prince Charles opened Central Milton Keynes Railway Station on 17th May 1982. Do you know that the building housing B & Q at Rooksley is owned by The Dutchy of Cornwall. Three Years earlier Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opened The Centre MK on 27th June 1979.

I can not say that I remember either of these visits, both the railway and most certainly The Centre MK are not places I frequent more than once in a decade. B & Q is that somewhere His Royal Highness nips into if he wants a packet of screws or a bag of nails ?  If he does I trust he brings his own sat nav with him, without it he has no chance of finding anything in this giant maze of everything you can think of but nothing you want to buy.

Ignore that paragraph, where was I ?  Oh yes. The Queen came to Bletchley.

In an earlier chapter I spoke of Mayor Brian Baldry meeting the royal train at Bletchley Station to welcome Her Majesty to the new city of Milton Keynes. It was a week day, I was at work teaching at Leon School. At the time Mr D B Bradshaw was headmaster. Leon is adjacent to the railway line along which the Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh would travel before reaching Bletchley and Mayor Baldry. We staff wanted to take our classes out onto the field to wave at the royal train. Headmaster Bradshaw did not think this was a justifiable reason to take the kids away from the Three R's.

Staff in the school office, however, were determined to change his mind. I think his secretary threatened to put a typo into every one of his letters until the end of term if Headmaster Bradshaw did not allow the entire school to wave at the royal train. A message was sent round the classrooms so we all decamped onto the field.

We enthusiastically waved at every train be it an express or a train scheduled to stop at every blade of grass. we waved at good trains and we even waved at a bin lorry driving along Drayton Road. We did not wave at the royal train. By the time Leon School was waving Her Majesty was long gone and the royal train was parked up in a siding at Bletchkey Station, possibly the same one that had housed the Great Train Robbery Travelling Post Office. An abundance of egg was on an abundance of faces !

After school and joking about the royal wave that never was I was driving Saxon Street behind The Brunel Centre when a black car approached then passed me by on the other side of the road. There she was sitting in the back seat, Her Britanic Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Perhaps as her train slowed towards Bletchley Station she saw the school, Leon School, on her right. Perhaps she wondered why there were no kinds there waving to greet her. Perhaps that is why she never bestowed a city charter on Milton Keynes. Perhaps.

Monday - A new week

MONDAY 8th JUNE 2020

I am a little bit late writing today's blog. I am The Geriatric DJ on an international radio station. During lock down the studio has been closed and I am not clever enough to broadcast from home using my laptop. The studio has now reopened so I was at the microphone when normally I would be writing this page. I had a good couple of hours playing music and this lifted my spirits. I had listeners in France, Russia, UK, Thailand, USA, Germany, United Arab Emerits and Italy.

These are hard times, we have a failing prime minister and a useless government.  Now we have these hideous riots. What is happening ?  In today's playlist I had put Barry McGuire's Eve Of Destruction. I was going play it as I brought the show to an end but as I had rocked and rolled for two hours celebrating our super heroes who are going the extra mile and more to support and protest us I did not want smash the show down with something negative. 

Even though we are in a hideous situation we need to be positive, smile and be happy then pass these feelings on to others. If you ask me that is were our government is going wrong. Just look at the depressing Downing Street briefings we have all stopped watching. If we had a better leadership, if we had been given inspiration the perhaps those hideous riot.s would not have happened.

As I played music this morning for our super heroes it did not enter my mind for a moment to wonder who was black, white, brown or pink with yellow spots. Some of the tracks I played were from Black singers and others from White guys and girls. It's the music that counts. 

No, I did not mention the riots during my show !  No I did not mention Boris Cumming-Johnson. Why should I ?  I was being positive

Milton Dreams - The City That Never Was - Chapter Twenty One

CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE – Riding Along In My Automobile

It was a long time before anyone dreamed of a new city to be called Milton Keynes that Chuck Berry had a number one hit with his automobile, translated into English an automobile is a car. Milton Keynes was built as a city for cars, when I moved here in 1971 I could not drive and if I could there were very few roads on which to drive.

In those early days we all knew what the map of Milton Keynes Development Corporation's strategic plan looked like. The logo for the new city was built around the area the city would encompass. The 1970's were exciting times as the strategic plan was put into action.

The first thing was to put in a system of grid roads. The roads which went up and down, north and south, were V roads - Vertical roads. The roads which went across the city were the H roads - Horizontal roads. People would joke as new roads were constructed within the grid system that Milton Keynes was a place of signs and wonders, there was an abundance of signs and nobody knew where they pointed to. Remember there was no thing as satellite navigation for cars back then. Actually the system of signs was simple and good. Approaching a junction the first sign told you the distant location you were driving towards, the second told you what you could find within the grid squares around the junction. The junctions were then roundabouts, many still are. Roundabouts often a source of jest.  Today street signs are scruffy, a big mess which do not properly reflect the locations they indicate. It is not the fault of the present Milton Keynes Council which has responsibility for maintaining the signs. The signs reflect the 1970's style in which they were first introduced. Milton Keynes Development Corporation did not invest sufficient quality into the design and constructions giving us the legacy we now have.

It was at the same time that Chuck Berry was riding along in his car aka automobile that Little Eva was inviting us to Do The Locomotion. I will come back to our roads.

It is said that Bletchley Park was chosen for the wartime decoding centre as it was half way between Birmingham and London, half way between Oxford and Cambridge. and it was adjacent to the railway station. Could be or that may just be a legend that has grown up over the years. Who knows. It is said, and again this could be little more than a myth within a legend, that the site for Milton Keynes was chosen because it was in the cross hairs of Birmingham and London. Oxford and Cambridge. By the 1970's the railway to Cambridge was defunct thanks to a certain Doctor Beeching.  Work is currently underway to restore and re-open the line.

We are talking here of British Rail and not of Virgin and all that lot. There was no such thing as Network Rail with its headquarters close to Central Milton  Keynes train station. Where both now stand was open fields. At the north of the new city was Wolverton Station and in the south Bletchley.

Do you know W H Auden's poem The Night Mail ?

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.

In the film version of the poem postal workers can be seen loading mail bags onto the contraption for the moving train to grab them. The commentary says this was happening near to Bletchley.  I suspect it was where The lakes Estate currently stands.

For those of us living in the early days of the new city British Rail introduced what it called The 50p Flier.  For fifty pence you could travel from Bletchley to Eustion and back. You could not leave Bletchley until after five o'clock and leave Euston before midnight.  Many, many times as a student I went to London, to The Palace Theatre, to watch the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar.  It was easy for me living in Bletchley Park, a short walk to the station but away from Bletchley and the other hamlets included within the designated area of Milton Keynes it was not easy. As the grid roads were being built plans were needed for a 'bus system.

In the early days buses were nationalised, a bit like the railways, but deregulation gave us Milton Keynes City Bus. By the time that company took to the road Milton Keynes Development Corporation had its plan. Having qualified as a teacher I lived very briefly on Tinklers Bridge, one of the very early estates in the New City. At the same time Netherfield, Bean Hill and Eaglestone were established. Shortly after came Coffee Hall. Residents were picked at random, I being one of them, were paid to keep a diary of their travel for a week.

Who remembers Milton Keynes Dial-a-Bus ? We re talking decades before mobile phones, few houses had their own phones and there was a six month waiting list for The Royal Mail, pre British telecom, to install one into a house. There was a shortage of public telephone boxes. At the end of each street on these early estates was a telephone from which you could call for a Dial-a-Bus to pick you up and take you to Bletchley Railway Station. It was a brilliant system and the Dial-a-Bus terminus is still there at Bletchley station,today it is just a slip way to the main drive into the station and is always clogged up with commuter cars.

On the subject of cars, Milton Keynes Development Corporation put into its plan that there would be no car parking charges in the new city. Well we are not a city but that does not excuse Milton Keynes Council trashing this foundation stone. £2 an hour to park ! These charges apply if you need to visit Central Milton Keynes Police Station, a tax on the law. They apply if you want to visit the court, a tax on justice. Visit the council offices and you have to pay, a tax on democracy.  Visit the library and the charge applies, a tax on knowledge. There is even a tax on faith as you have to pay to go to church.

Sorry about that little rant, Back to Milton Keynes Dial-a-Bus. Some people who can remember these little yellow Mercedes vehicle complain that did not last long. They were not meant to, it was all part of the information gathering system to plan bus and transport needs.

The first major road to be built in Milton Keynes was The H8 Marlborough Street. My memory tells me that it was a dual carriageway from the start as it connected the northern and southern areas of the new city. Some roads began as single carriageways but were upgraded as the city developed and traffic demanded. On every road bridges crossing were built to accommodate dual carriageways. As you drive round Milton Keynes you will see some wide bridges where half of of the land below them is road and half is grass. These are roads which never had sufficient traffic to be expanded.

In those few months I lived on Tinkers Bridge the bus connected this estate and Netherfields with Bletchley. One bus an hour went to Eaglestone. Beyond Eaglestone there was nothing but fields.

The Milton Keynes Development Corporation's plan did include a monorail if travel indicated one would be well used. It never happened and probably would not have been used.

Surely one reason for building Milton Keynes where it is was to have it adjacent to The M1 Motorway. Convenient junctions at 14 and 13 serving the north and south. There was talk of a Junction 13A linking to the city centre but just like the city it did not happen.

Those of us who lived in Milton Keynes at the time it was built call it The A5 D with D meaning diversion. Newer residents call it The A5. The old A5 following the Roman Road of Watling Street became Watling Street while The A5 D has become the new A5. When it opened I thought it would become a bit of a white elephant but how wrong I was. This is the main arterial road in Milton Keynes. You can get from one end of the "city" in inverted commas to the other in a very short space of time.

Hey I should have mentioned this before. Lovely Rita Metre Maid from The Beatles Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Wind back seven paragraphs to where I was talking about Milton Keynes parking charges. It's not much of a good song and not known by many Beatles fans, perhaps applicable to parking wardens, attendants or whatever they are called these days.

I should perhaps take a ride up to Central Milton Keynes Railway Station before writing this but I can not afford the £2 parking charge to check if I am right in saying the station was opened by HRH Prince Charles The Prince of Wales.  If I am wrong well send the bill to Milton Keynes Council's parking rip off department.

People did when it first opened and I guess they possibly still do get off a train at Milton Keynes Central and say where is Central Milton Keynes ?  It's a mile up that way ! Then in ignorance some say well why didn't Milton Keynes Development Corporation build Central Milton Keynes next to the railway station ? In a single word reply to that question I would say Saxon.

What is address of Milton Keynes Council's civic offices ? 1 SAXON Gate ! Central Milton Keynes is located where it is because this is the site of the ancient Saxon Court. Our ancestors had no use for the railway and their day there also was no £2 an hour parking charge ! Central Milton Keynes may be a bit of a carbuncle as Prince Charles, who did open the railway station - I have just checked, would describe its architecture but the station was opened on 14th May 1982 and the Saxons date from around in the fifth century. The Saxons take precedence.

Milton Keynes Development Corporation but Central Milton Keynes on ley lines it set up with three parallel roads:

Avebury Boulevard ?  Avebury Stones near Marlborough.  Marlborough Street was the first new road to be built connecting North and South Milton Keynes. 

Silbury Boulevard ?  As in Silbury Hill not far from the Avebury Stones ?

Midsummer Boulevard ?  Better today to be referred to as DEAD END STREET !

Three major roads set down on the Milton Keynes Development Corporation's Strategic Plan as ley lines within the new city. Three parallel lines of roads crossing Central Milton Keynes, the location of the original Saxons.

Midsummer Boulevard aka Dead End Street is now in twenty-four hour darkness since the short-sighted planners in Milton Keynes Council gave permission for a totally unnecessary shopping building - The Intu. What does Intu mean ? Intruder ? It has intruded and destroyed the Midsummer Boulevard ley line ! How could Milton Keynes ever become a city when one of its fundamental ley lines has been destroyed in the way it has.  Knock down the Intu, plant  trees and help take a small Saxon Step to the dream coming true.

And with that I will end my ramble through Milton Keynes Development Corporation's transport planning

CHAOS !

SUNDAY 7th JUNE 2020:

Has the country gone mad ?  All this taking the knee stuff for the man who brutally lost his life in America.   There is no way what happened can be defended and I rust those who are responsible will be brought fully to justice.

Black lives matter, of course they do. All lives matter, is it racist to separate them out into ethnic groups ? Is that not racist in itself. How many lives are now to be lost by way of the pandemic because of the mass gatherings we are witnessing. Would George Floyd want that to happen ?

Yesterday 204 more lives were lost, today 204 more grieving loved ones. Where was Boris Cummings-Johnson ?  Nowhere to be seen ! No Downing Street briefing yesterday ! Ratings have tumbled so let's not bother. Ratings have tumbled because of the monotonous and uncaring way in which Boris Cummings-Johnson's sad little Yes Men read their scripts.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, winch I am not, I could say that these mass gatherings are a government initiative to cover up its abysmal failure to lead the nation in these difficult times. I wonder what else Boris Cummings-Johnson has up his sleeve. 

I so hope I am wrong but what will the death figures be in two weeks time ?  Sunday 21st June 2020 ?  How many more families will have their hearts and lives torn apart ?

ALL LIVES MATTER.-

Milton Dreams - The City That Never Was - Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - This Will Never Catch On

Americans may try to claim different but the world knows Britain invented the computer and it happened in Bletchley Park. World famous Bletchley Park, perhaps we should have The City of Bletchley rather than The City of Milton Keynes ! Sound's good don't you think ? Right then, let me take my tongue out of my cheek and tell you about something I seriously never thought would catch on.

As a preamble to the main part of my story please join me at a staff meeting in Leon School, I was then a junior member of staff and Mr D B Bradshaw was headmaster. Mr Bradshaw was explaining to the meeting that there was a sum of money left in the budget for the year, if it was not spent then Buckinghamshire County Council would claw it back. Did anyone have any ideas how it could be spent ?  I spoke up and suggested the school could buy a computer. Headmaster Bradshaw immediately poured scorn on my thinking. What a stupid idea ! If the council saw that happening it would say we hard far too much money, money to waste and would cut our budget for the coming year !

Later in my career at Leon, by this time I had become head of year, I was talking to a young teenager who was possibly the most intelligent student in the entire school. I was trying to support him through a difficult situation so ours was quite a long and deep conversation. While talking he said to me that the day would come when every home in the country would have a computer of its own.  This young man may have been the most intelligent student in the school but what a silly thing to say. It was never going to happen.

It was Prime Minister Harold Wilson who founded The Open University. Based at Walton Hall it was a ground breaking concept in education.  I am sure that Harold Wilson would have seen The Open University as part of the plan for The New City of Milton Keynes to become a city in its own right. My parents-in-law were married at Walton Church which was later decommissioned as a church to became part of The Open University. The other evening I watched the film of the play Educating Rita starring Julie Walters and Michael Caine, Rita was an Open University Student.  I am rambling, forgive me let me get on with the story.

The Open University held a one day course pulling together different parts of society in The New City Of Milton Keynes. I was the education representative. A friend of mine was there representing the police. His name was Alan, we sat together at a square of tables upon each which was placed a giant computer monitor. Do you remember when computers used green lettering on a black background ? Such were these state of the art computers we were about to use.

The professor began speaking, I can remember his words so clearly. You may have heard of something called The World Wide Web. Had we ? British scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989, no America you did not invent the internet, gave us The World Wide Webb. So I am assuming this all happened some time in 1990. Well, the professor continued, I am going to teach you all how to send letters using the world wide web we are calling this electronic mail.

We were all told how to make this extremely difficult and scientifically complex electronic letter system work. We were then told to send an electronic letter to the person sitting next to us, I tried and failed to send an electronic letter to Policeman Alan. Policeman Alan tried and failed to send a message to me. Everyone in the room tried and failed to send an electronic letter.

I don't see the point, I explained, if I want to speak to someone I telephone them.

But what if they are not by the phone to answer you ?

At work I have a secretary and at home I have an answer machine.

But with this, the professor defended, you can attach a document.

We had not, none of us, managed to send a single message saying HI let alone attach a three volume novel.

Have you never heard of a fax machine ? I said sarcastically. Everyone in the room save the professor agreed with me.

How old are you reading this ?  How many of you know what a fax machine is ?  If you are under thirty then you were born into a world before the internet and what became e-mail. Jimmy Carter was elected to the White House in 1993 and left office in 2001. I remember him saying that when he became president there was no such thing as a website when he left nobody could live without them. I wonder if there is a fax machine in The Science Museum.

Have you never heard of a fax machine ? I said sarcastically. Everyone in the room save the professor agreed with me.

Trust me, I added, this will never catch on !