MK Today - Wednesday 22nd February 2023

 

Who are the Milton Keynes Worthies ?

In a moment I will tell you who I have placed on MY list and invite you to compile YOUR list but first of all let me give you a little bit of background information. Milton Keynes Worthies is a chapter in my book Milton Keynes TheCity Of Legend and everyone on my list is a legend within the heritage of our City.

If you visit Stowe National Trust near Buckingham you will find the Temple of the British Worthies. Make sure you check it out next time you visit and you will find sixteen people there named.

Sir Thomas Gresham    Ignatius Jones    John Milton    William Shakespeare

John Locke    Sir Isaac Newton    Sir Francis Bacon    King Alfred

Edward Prince of Wales    Queen Elizabeth    King William III    Sir Walter Raleigh

Sir Francis Drake    John Hampden    Sir John Barnard    Signiory Fido

As we celebrate our wonderful City of Milton Keynes which sixteen worthies should we include ?

Who would be on your list of Milton Keynes Worthies ?  Here is my thinking. How many of these names do you recognise.

ONE: Prime Minister Harold Wilson

TWO: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

THREE/FOUR: Jonny Dankworth and Cleo Lane

FIVE: Jim Marshall The Lord of Loud

SIX: Jock (Lord) Campbell of Eskan

SEVEN/EIGHT: Sir Herbert and Lady Fanny Leon

NINE: Bill Billings

TEN: Bruce Abbott

ELEVEN: Fred Lloyd Roche

TWELVE: David Taylor

THIRTEEN: Sir Frank Markham

FOURTEEN: Jennie Lee

FIFTEEN: Doctor Peter Jarvis

SIXTEEN: Doreen Adcock

HAROLD WILSON

Harold Wilson was born on Saturday 11^th March 1916 and left us on Wednesday 24^th May 1995. He served as Prime Minister from 1964 to 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976.

It was in 1967 that Harold Wilson’s government announced an area of land was to be designated in North Buckinghamshire for the building of a new city. He gave us Milton Keynes. Prime Minister Wilson also gave us The Open University co-founding it with Jennie Lee, Harold Wilson’s son became a Professor of Mathematics at The Open University. Without Harold Wilson there would be no Milton Keynes within which to have a single worthy.

HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II

Our celebrated monarch, the longest serving our proud country has ever seen, was born on Wednesday 21^st April 1926 the daughter of The Duke and Duchess of York. When King Edward VIII abdicated the throne on 11^th December 1936 her father became King George VI and Princes Elizabeth heir to the throne. On the death of her father King George VI on 6^th February 1952 she became Queen Elizabeth II. Her coronation took place on 2^nd June 1953.

Our monarch over the years made several visits to Milton Keynes. It was in May 2022 within her Platinum Jubilee celebration that she conferred a city charter on our home. This has to be the greatest honour to have been bestowed upon Milton Keynes and it will never be surpassed. We have waited across decades for our New City to become a real City. This happening within Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee has enhanced the honour.

Shortly after bestowing this honour on our home making Milton Keynes a real New City Her Majesty passed away on Thursday 8^th September 2022. The whole world mourned her passing but celebrated her life, Milton Keynes celebrated with thanks and gratitude her reign within which Milton Keynes became the city that truly is.

JONNY DANKWORTH AND CLEO LANE

John Dankworth was born on Tuesday 20^th September 1927 and left us on Saturday 6^th February 2010. He was knighted by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2006. He was the first British jazz musician to receive this honour.

John (Johnny Dankworth) and Cleo Laine were married in 1958.

Cleo Laine was born on Friday 28^th October 1927.

JIM MARSHALL THE LORD OF LOUD

Jim was born on Sunday 29^th July 1923 and left us on Thursday 5^th April 2012.

He too is celebrated in the Milton Keynes City Of Legend chapter WE BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK AND ROLL, indeed without Jim Marshall much of the rock and roll we know within the world would not have happened. Jim is celebrated on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, I am also celebrating him here as a Milton Keynes Worthy.

JOCK (LORD) CAMPBELL OF ESKAN

John Middleton Campbell Baron Campbell of Eskan was born on Thursday 8^th August 1912 and left us on Monday 26^th December 1994. To his family he was known as Jock, a smiling nick-name which found its way into the New City of Milton Keynes.

He was the chairman of Booker Brothers, McConnell and Co which became Booker-McConnell. He was created a life peer on 14^th January 1966 when he took the title Baron Campbell of Eskan. (Camis Eskan in the County of Durham)

He gave us the Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize. This is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. Owch Jock, I have never won it myself !

Beyond all of this Jock Lord Campbell of Eskin was the chairman of Milton Keynes Development Corporation. He is celebrated with Campbell Park but needs to be further celebrated as a Milton Keynes Worthy.

SIR HERBERT AND LADY FANNY LEON

The Leon Family came to Bletchley in 1883. Sir Herbert Leon left us in 1926, Lady Fanny Leon departed in 1936. Their time as Mkeneyans was short compared to the areas of legend and heritage I discuss within this book but they gave so much to our community, a heritage upon which society proudly stands today.

BILL BILLINGS

Bill was a larger than life character who I am proud to be able to say I worked with. No, I am not an artist I simply administered one of his projects.

In the early days of Milton Keynes, in the 1970's, lorry driver Brian Billings came from London to work on the building sites of the New City.

It was far, far more than houses Brian, better known as Bill, had a hand in building. In 1980 his work was recognised with an honory degree from The Open University, itself a Milton Keynes icon and landmark. In 2000 he was awarded an MBE by HM Queen Elizabeth II. Sadly, Bill left us on Boxing Day 2007 but his work is a legend and will remain so for decades to come. Milton Keynes would not be Milton Keynes without Bill Billings. Bill Billings is certainly a Milton Keynes worthy.

Bill was not the concrete cows, not the originals anyway. These were three cows and three calves built by artist Liz Leyh in 1978.  It was The BBC's DJ and presenter Noel Edmunds who made the cows famous. He was forever making jokes saying how Milton Keynes was closing farms to build houses and factories so throwing out the real cows but replacing them with concrete cows to match the concrete fields !

Too fragile now to be left in the open those original cows are in a museum, but their replacement are indeed the work of Bill Billings.

Another celebrated landmark is The Peartree Bridge Dinosaur built by Bill way back in 1979.

Who remembers as a child climbing on to the back of Bill's dinosaur ?  Bon Jovi did a photoshoot at the Peartree Dinosaur.

Bill gave us a wonderful heritage display near Wolverton a heritage display which is itself a display of heritage today.

Bill also gave us the Leon Dinosaur which I talk at length about in another chapter. At the risk of repeating myself this is something from Volume One Not The Concrete Cows adapted from one of my feature articles in the early 1990’s in the Milton Keynes Citizen.

JURASSIC CLASSIC:

Steven Speilberg - Jurassic Park ? Forget it. Crowds flocking to cinema screens up and down the country, media hype, marketing bandwagons covering everything from tee shirts to birthday cakes. Anyone would think that Mr Speilberg and Universal Studios invented the species. Well the silver screen mogul is very much mistaken, Milton Keynes has had its own Jurassic Classic for years.

Every British Rail passenger travelling up and down the main line through Bletchley could be forgiven for thinking themselves victims of a time warp. Either that or perhaps they wonder if the eight thirty-two out of Euston has taken a wrong turning and ended up in Hollywood California. For there, snarling at all and towering thirty feet above its surroundings is a life size Tyrannosaurus !

But this specimen is, for the most part, friendly and being constructed out of reinforced concrete not likely to terrorise anyone. Living at the bottom of Leon School's playing field this particular dinosaur was built under the direction of local artist Bill Billings. During the spring and summer of 1991 Bill and a team of Leon students dug out foundations and erected a steel frame support before casting the beast in concrete.

Although Central Television showed an initial interest in the statue it has entered the landmark scene of Milton Keynes and been taken so much for granted it is anything but forgotten. But T Rex is not the only one of Bill Billings Jurassic creations to roam the city. A few miles along Marlborough Street, at Peartree Bridge, is Triceratops again sculptured in concrete and this particular dinosaur came to live in Milton Keynes fifteen years ago.

Standing in the grounds of the Interaction youth project at The Old Rectory, Peartree Bridge, this dinosaur has been featured in a Bon Jovi video and was, for a time, the subject of the most popular selling post card of Milton Keynes. Unfortunately, the trees along the V8 have matured now to the point where the sculpture can no longer be seen from the road. But next time you are in the area turn off towards Waterside and admire this particular landmark.

So Mr Speilberg you may have become a legend in your own time but so, in Milton Keynes, has Bill Billings. Then when your Jurassic Park is consigned to the discount shelves of the video stores then repeated every Boxing Day on our televisions Bill's creations will still be in their youth. And who knows Bill may have another Jurassic Classic in mind to graze on the planes of our city !

Reading that article now I am smiling at somewhat dated wording video stores, what were they ?

From Brian Billings lorry driver to Bill Billings community artist, a true Milton Keynes Worthy.

BRUCE ABBOTT

You will not find this gentleman within a Google search but I would suggest he is a truly worthy, a Milton Keynes Worthy. Emigrating to Milton Keynes from Liverpool Bruce Abbott became headmaster of Leon School on Bletchley’s Lakes Estate. Not only is he a personal choice within my Milton Keynes Worthies but I am naming him as the representative of education across our developing new city.

Bruce’s attitude to education was value added. Providing a child came into school at one level, physically, socially and academically then left at a higher level of achievement with value having been added to life the school had been a success. He was a headmaster ahead of his time and one today many strive to catch up.

Personally during some hard time in my life with my daughter in and our of hospital Bruce and his wife were a source of so much encouragement, love and support. Bruce Abbott is a Milton Keynes Worthy to be recognised and applauded.

FRED LLOYD ROCHE

Milton Keynes did not just happen you know ! There was a lot that happened between Harold

Wilson’s government designating the area in January 1967 and Her Majesty granting us a city charter within her Platinum Jubilee celebrations in June 2022. We had the strategic plan, we had the Milton Keynes Development Corporation with Jock Lord Campbell of Eskan as its chairman. Fred Lloyd Roche was the General Manager of Milton Keynes Development Corporation.

Fred was born on 11^th March 1931 and left us on 9^th November 1992.

He was Chief Architect of Runcorn Development Corporation from 1965 to 1970 when he moved to become General Manager of Milton Keynes Development Corporation.

Without this gentleman there would be no Milton Keynes within which to have a single Worthy and so his name must rightly appear on the list.

DAVID TAYLOR

You won’t find this gentleman on Wikipedia, the font of all knowledge, but a Google search will  direct you to areas of my writing.

David Taylor was Mayor of Milton Keynes from 1987 to 1988. I knew and worked extensively with Mayor Taylor as I have explained in other areas of this book. He was an inspirational man who have so much to our New City and put in place much heritage upon which The CITY of Milton Keynes so proudly stands today. In naming Mayor David Taylor as one of my Milton Keynes Worthies I am celebrating all his achievements as placing him here as a representative of all Milton Keynes Mayors, those who served before him, those who served after him and those who have yet to serve.

SIR FRANK MARKHAM

If it were not for Sir Frank Markham my writing would be confined to fiction stories and the like

. I would never have had fun exploring and sharing our city’s heritage. To my side as I write now I have Sir Frank Markham’s History of Milton Keynes and District which I am using to write the chapter about Milton Keynes during the English Civil War.

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.

Sir Frank Markham gave us so much beyond being our member of parliament, he is a true Milton Keynes Worthy.

JENNIE LEE

Jennie Lee was Minister for Arts in Harold Wilson’s Government. When he shared his idea for a university on the air she took it forward the co-founded with Prime Minister Harold Wilson the now world famous Open University.

Janet Lee was born on Thursday 3^rd November 1904 and left us on Wednesday 16^th November 1988. In 1934 she married Aneurin Bevan whose work gave us our National Health Service. Bevan died in 1960, seven years before the birth of Milton Keynes.

In the old Bletchley Leisure Centre was the ever popular Jennie Lee Theatre. That memorial to her work is long gone and to many Mkeneyans she is unknown. I believe she deserves recognition, I place her on my list of Milton Keynes Worthies.

 

DOCTOR PETER JARVIS

Doctor Peter Jarvis features in my book NHS – National Happy Smiles. When I came to Milton Keynes as a student teacher Doctor Jarvis was the college doctor as well as a local GP. When I graduated I joined his practice as a patient then as my family came along so did every member. Doctor Jarvis is more than a general practitioner, through his community involvement he has given much to our heritage. Indeed in his book Sir Frank Markham published a picture of Rectory Cottages in Bletchley acknowledging Doctor Jarvis providing it. Rectory Cottages was where our wedding reception was held and the booking was made with the help of Doctor Jarvis. When my daughter Rebekah died Doctor Jarvis wrote a beautiful letter to our family. Meeting him a few weeks later at a community event I thanked him. He set aside my praise saying he was simply doing what was right from someone who cared. Yes Doctor Jarvis you have cared for our community for more than fifty years, cared in so many different ways. Her Majesty The Queen may not have honoured you but Milton Keynes does, you  are a Milton Keynes Worthy.

DOREEN ADCOCK

I am not able to swim !  In the area where I grew up there was no swimming pool. When the Lakes Estate opened its Leon School it had its own swimming pool, something unique for a school in its day. But you need more than a pool to teach someone to swim. Enter Doreen Adcock. Did you grow up on the Lakes Estate ?  Did you grow up in South Milton Keynes ? Can you swim ?  Without Doreen Adcock you probably would not be able to swim. It is estimated within Milton Keynes she taught more than thirteen thousand people how to swim !

When the Olympic Games came to London in 2012 Doreen Adcock was one of those who carried its flame through Milton Keynes.

Doreen’s motto was that no child was too difficult or disabled to teach. It would be difficult to count how many people she taught to swim. I wish she had taught me. I am adding her to my Milton Keynes Worthies as someone who gave much to our community. If only there were more like her.

So there you have my nominations for our sixteen Milton Keynes Worthies. Who would you place on your list ? Please share your thoughts and celebrate those who enabled Milton Keynes to be worth of its city charter.

MK Today - Saturday 18th February 2023

What is the collective noun for a group of cathedrals ? Can such be found within the Oxford University’s Dictionary of the English Language ?  NO, but within the Open University’s Dictionary of the English Language the collective noun for a group of cathedrals is MILTON KEYNES.

When His Majesty King Charles III visited our city on Thursday 16^th February 2023 it is of note his reception was held at Christ The Cornerstone and not within the hideous carbuncle on the face of a much loved friend as given to our city centre by Milton Keynes Cowboy Council !

His Majesty, defender of faith rather than one single faith.

Christ The Cornerstone was the first purpose built ecumenical church in the country. Unlike its ugly neighbours up the road this is a place of architectural beauty and a beauty which embraces faith, not religion – faith it a very

wide  sense. I attend this special location for my blood donor sessions. Every Thursday it hosts NHS Blood Donations. Faith not the faith. Yes, Christ The Cornerstone is the very first purpose built ecumenical church in England.

Also within Milton Keynes can be found our beautiful Peace Pagoda, the very first such monument of faith to be built in the Western World. Did you know that the hill upon which it stands is entirely man-made ? I remember watching lorry load after lorry load of soil being driven and tipped onto the flat farmland to build the home on which

Milton Keynes Pagoda of Peace was to be built. Every ounce of soil was transported to site escorted by Buddhist Monks tapping drums and praying.

This week’s edition of MK Today draws on the longer text within my book MiltonKeynes The City of Legend.

Saint Giles Church Tattenhoe, the present building dates back six hundred years but there was a church on the site before the cathedral we know today. Legend says that Thomas Becket, before he became Archbishop of Canterbury and murdered in his own cathedral visited, worshiped and preached at Tattenhoe.

By congregation numbers, possibly the biggest church in Milton Keynes is The Christian Centre on Oldbrook, did you know this is where the Milton Keynes Foodbank was started. Faith not the faith.

Then we have Amazing Grace, the world’s most artist recorded piece of music. From Elvis Presley The King of Rock and Roll to US President Barak Obama, from Andre Rieu to The Tabernacle Choir, Amazing Grace was given to the world by John Newton of Saint Peter and Saint Paul’s Church in Olney Milton Keynes.

Walton Church, now deconsecrated as a place of worship, is beautifully preserved within the campus of the Open University. Faith.

Some will tell you that a city must have a cathedral but that is not the case. Milton Keynes does not have such but it has a beautiful collection of places celebrating faith.

Do we need a collective noun for a group of cathedrals ?  Perhaps not when we have such a wonderful collection of faith as we have here in our City of Milton Keynes. I have here touched on but a small number. Go out and explore the rest for yourself.

MK Today - Wednesday 15th February 2023

All robots are stupid but some are more evil than others !

George Orwell, please forgive my adapting that line from your work Animal Farm.

Milton Keynes you have got a lot to answer for ! I am sure our City will want to assign blame to just one area – BLETCHLEY. Bletchley, you have got one heck of a lot to answer for. YOU gave the world robots !

Robots when I was a kid were fun friends from science fiction. Who remembers Fireball XL5 and its robot Robert ?  Can you remember his catch phrase ? On our way home… I wasn’t exactly a kid, I was eleven years old when this first screened but I loved this fun programme.

Where did you watch Star Wars ? Released in 1977 I watched the adventures of R2D2 and C3PO at the Electra in Newport Pagnell. 1977, that was six years before the invention of the internet.

Britain gave the world the Internet. Britain gave the world the computer, Bletchley gave the world the computer. America may like to think it invented the thinking machine but it was right here in Milton Keynes, in Bletchley Park that the brain for a robot was invented. Perhaps, given robots in 2023 we should deny all responsibility and let the Americans applaud their own lie.

Do you shop at Morrisons by any chance ? Morrisons robotic self check out. All robots are stupid but Morrissons are more stupid than most. Payment excepted ! DOH YOU THICK MORONIC ROBOT – excepted means thrown aside and not included ! You

mean Payment accepted !

When the end of World War Two came to an end and Alan Turing and his mates were able to put their hammers on the shelf, no more codes to break Winston Churchill ordered the Bletchley Park computers should be destroyed so enemies could not steal the knowledge. Winston, any chance you could come back and order the destruction of Microsoft ? Board up its windows and allow it to return to the job it does best manufacturing used recycled toilet paper.

Milton Keynes Development Corporation built a city of trees with the foundation stone that no building shall be taller that the surrounding trees. Cowboy planners in Milton Keynes Council

trashed that, I am sure if I started a robotic on-line petition thousand would sign demanding Central Milton Keynes should be demolished and turned into a new forest.

But even more hideous that the likes of the Hub and Xscape are the forest of phone masts obliterating our City. But start a petition against these and I doubt I would get a single person to sign !

Anywhere you go today count the number of people using a smart phone linked to these masts. Actually it would be easier to count those who are NOT using them. Dumbo smart phones are infinitely more addictive than any Class A drug !

Smart phones are compensatory aids. If you are hard of hearing you can wear a hearing aid.

If you eyesight is less than 20/20 you can nip along to Specsavers. If you break your leg and have it plastered the hospital will give you a crutch to compensate and help you walk. If you are thick and stupid with a brain lacking intelligence you can use a smart phone to compensate.

Smart phones are the handcuffs of the brain. They are robots in reverse. They take over the brain turning users into semi-intelligent robots.

What are these semi-intelligent users doing: Ordering on Amazon The Adventures of Billy

Wobblestick by William Shakespeare ? Listening to the coronation music of Edward the Confessor ?  Checking the precise height of the Empire State Building ? Making sure there is not going ti be a hurricane in the south-west corner of North Korea ? All while researching the precise date of King Henry VIII’s male menopause !

All robots (humans) are stupid but some (smart phones) are more evil than others !

Milton Keynes is proud (Why ?) of its Starship robots delivering Mars Bars and the odd packet of crisps. I wonder what a Dalek would say if it encountered one such mobile stupid robot !

EXTERMINATE perhaps.

I am going to step outside my generation for a moment (I was born in 1950). Back to my father’s generation (He was born in 1926) and to my son’s generation (He was born in 1980)

In the early 1970’s my father outsourced accounting from his work to a computer bank. When the print outs were returned he observed that in addition to the worker payslips he wanted pages and pages of additional information was supplied, information he did not need but having paid for the computer bank he felt obliged to use all of the information the robot had churned out.

What car do you drive ? My son drives a Tesla. Visiting over Christmas when he and his family were ready to leave he tapped an app on his stupid smart phone, told the car outside to start its engine and warm up the heating before they all got in and drove home.

Who drove home ? Was it my son or some stupid robot in control of the car. Generation, I wouldn’t even be a passenger in a Twittering Elton Musk Robot. I wonder if when it speaks it quotes the Fireball XL5 robot – ON OUR WAY HOME.

All this robotic nonsense, apps, smart phones, and so on all descend from Bletchley Park !

In my book MILTON KEYNES THE CITY OF LEGEND I speak of my attending a day tutorial at our Open University. There were representatives from different areas of our New City, I was representing education. The professor stood up and said: You may have heard of a new invention called the world wide web. I am going to teach you today to send letters using this new invention, I am going to teach you to send electronic mail.

We were charged to send an electronic letter to the person sitting next to us. Not a single delegate could make it work. I said: This will never catch on. All other delegates agreed.

Do you remember the film You’ve Got Mail. So dated it never appears on retro TV.

e-mail, ever time you send an e-mail you run the risk of it being clicked and deleted without ever being read. For every e-mail you send instead of a letter you are helping to put Postman Pat out of a job.

Alan Turing and Bletchley Park just look at what you did !

When you finished your day’s work did you use an app from your enigma hammer to pay for a pint at The Three Trees ?

I’ll now use a computer to post this on the World Wide Web and send electronic mail to tell everyone its there !

MK Today - Saturday 11th February 2023

With His Majesty King Charles III about to visit Milton Keynes to confirm and to celebrate our home being awarded a city charter may I share a couple of bits from my book MILTON KEYNES THE CITY OF LEGEND: 

School Assembly and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II And The Visit That Never Was.

In the definition of the word these are perhaps not legends, there certainly is no myth about them as every word you are about to read actually happened.  If enough people now read about Milton Keynes Mayor Brian Baldry’s school assembly and the wave at the bottom of Leon School’s field then perhaps these event may be lifted into legend !

So let’s start, shall we, with School Assembly

What were school assemblies like when you were a kid ?  Were they as boring as they were

for me ?  Were they as boring as some of the assemblies I presided over at Leon School. Never mind which school you went to, never mind if morning assemblies were good, bad or ugly let me share memories of a very special time.

In 1981 Brian Baldry became the eighth Mayor of Milton Keynes.  He decided he wanted to come to Leon School where his son and daughter were students, he wanted to address the entire school and explain the Milton Keynes motto on the crest hanging from his mayoral chain:

BY KNOWLEDGE, DESIGN AND UNDERSTANDING

Headmaster David Bradshaw gave me the task of organising the visit and assembly. In 1981 I would have preferred he had dumped the major task on another member of staff but today I am so proud that I was the one who drew the short straw.

I had to pack one thousand two hundred students and staff into the sports hall, a tight fit. Mayor Brian then gave a brilliant talk totally captivating and inspiring the students, not to mention the staff. That was forty-two years ago and yet, such was its inspiration, I can remember it as if it was yesterday.

By Knowledge, Design and Understanding. Mayor Brian stood before the assembly, took the mayoral chain in his hands and explained in detail the motto of our New City.  He wanted every student and every member of staff at Leon School to be very clear that this was the at the heart of Milton Keynes and what the words meant.

Knowledge began with The Open University then spreading out to every single school in the New City. Design was the planning of Milton Keynes Development Corporation. Understanding was the way we would all come together to build Milton Keynes New City into a Milton Keynes a Great City. That is how Mayor Brian explained his chain of office. He inspired everyone at that assembly about the New City where we lived.

After the assembly Mayor Brian chatted with me about our infant City. We called Milton Keynes a City as it was being developed and everyone just assumed on completion it would be awarded a city charter. A few weeks after that assembly Mayor Brian was to host HM Queen Elizabeth II on a visit to Milton Keynes. Brian would meet her at Bletchley Railway Station, there was no Central Milton Keynes Station back then. He hoped that visit would lead to Milton Keynes being awarded city charter and shared his passion with me as we chatted. He so much wanted to be Lord Mayor of Milton Keynes.

Being a city does not automatically mean its mayor becomes a Lord Mayor. Birmingham has a Lord Mayor but Greater London does not. Milton Keynes is now a city but we do not have a lord for our mayor. The role of the mayor is above politics, It was in 1999, seven years after Mayor Baldry left office, that elected mayors started popping up. Boris Johnson was an elected mayor of London. I do so hope that Milton Keynes does not go down this path of folly.

Anyway………

Mayor Brian Baldry was a businessman, well he liked to think that he was. He owned a taxi company, a small haulage firm and Bletchley Coaches. The wheels on the bus go round and round, well sometimes on some of Brian's buses they did but not always did they do so.

Following the success of Mayor Brian's school assembly, he decided he would host a group of students at the new Milton Keynes Council offices. Brian sent one of his own coaches to the school to take us there.  I say us because again I drew the short straw and was put in charge. It may  have been a short straw forty odd years ago but today I am again so proud to have been given the task.

Driving the short distance from Leon School in the south of Milton Keynes to the civic offices in the city centre the engine of the coach began to overheat. By knowledge and a lot of understanding the driver managed to get it to the city centre and park up outside the council offices. He blagged an empty milk bottle from reception then kept running in and out with water to top up the radiator. It was my role to distract Mayor Baldry from what was happening. I smile now as I tell you the milk bottle which the driver was frantically using to fix the coach was from Taylor's Dairy, a dairy owned by a fellow council member and colleague of Mayor Brian, David Taylor who would later become Mayor of Milton Keynes.

BY KNOWLEDGE, DESIGN AND UNDERSTANDING 

Mayor Brian I am sure you were disappointed on not becoming Lord Mayor of Milton Keynes, I know how much you loved our New City. You left us many years ago but I am sure you are looking down from the mayor’s chamber in the sky with great pride now Her Majesty has granted Milton Keynes it’s well-deserved city charter.

Your visit to Leon School and your assembly has gone down as a legend. I wonder how many remember your speaking to us all in that packed sports hall. I wonder how many of your successors have donned their chain and visited our city schools to give a similar lecture. Not many if any I am guessing. Perhaps such a duty should form part of mayoral civic duties.

And now for….

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II And The Visit That Never Was:

It was a weekday when Mayor Brian welcomed Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to Milton Keynes, at the time Mr D B Bradshaw was Leon School 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 quickly sent round the classrooms, so we all decamped onto the field.

 

There we enthusiastically waved at all trains be they an express or a train scheduled to stop at every blade of grass. We waved at goods trains and we even waved at a bin lorry driving along Drayton Road. But 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 Bletchley Station, possibly the same one that had housed the Great Train Robbery’s Travelling Post Office. An abundance of egg was left on an abundance of Leon School faces !

 

After school and joking about the royal wave that never was, I was driving along Saxon Street behind The Brunel Centre in Bletchley 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 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 kids there waving to greet her. Perhaps.

Your Majesty King Charles III I am sure we are all looking forward to you visit to the City of Milton Keynes on Thursday 16^th February 2023. I will myself be attending a blood donor session but I promise while laying back on the donation bed that I will wave !

MK Today - Wednesday 8th February 2023

Could Milton Keynes be considered to be a City of Literature ?

My first reaction to such a question is to say No, it couldn’t. But let me explore a little more deeply.

Who is the most celebrated writer to be associated with Milton Keynes ? Well it aint me so we won’t go there !

I have often wondered in Lady Fanny Leon of Bletchley Park which was her home between 1883 and 1936 kept a diary. It’s the sort of thing she would have done but if she did I wonder what happened to it.

Ernest Cook, Headmaster of Bletchley Road School which later became Leon School kept a school log book, perhaps an alterative term for diary, in which he meticulously recorded the day to day activities of staff and pupils at Bletchley Road. I read page after page of his writing and shared such with my students when I worked at Leon.

This is a passage from Milton Keynes The City Of Legend where I have copied some of Headmaster Cook’s wartime entries.

October the 14th 1940 Air Raid Warning 10:50 AM   All Clear 11:10 AM  Air Raid Warning 11:20 AM   All Clear 11:30 PM  Air Raid Warning 12:35 PM  All Clear 2:05 PM

November the 6th 1940  Air Raid Warning 11:10 AM  All Clear 11:25 AM   Air Raid Warning 2:20 PM   All Clear 3:25 PM

January the 21st 1941 Air Raid Warning 10.23 AM   All Clear 10:47 AM   Air Raid  Warning 11:37 AM   All Clear 12:20 PM   Air Raid Warning 1:43 PM   All Clear 2:08 PM    Air Raid Warning 3:35 PM   All Clear 4:15 PM

And….

September 22nd1939 school reopened owing to the presence of two official evacuated schools from London. The Bletchley Senior School is meeting only from 9:00 AM to 12:30 PM 

September the 27th 1939 Mr J Haynes Assistant Secretary for Education visited the school. A conference was held between the heads of the Bletchley Schools and the evacuated London School to discuss the many problems arising from working in double sessions.

And edited by Your Truly for a chapter in Milton Keynes The City Of Legend:

The school cancelled its sports day scheduled for May 31st in fear for the worsening situation at Dunkirk. It must have been a terrible time as Britain prepared, after the fall of France, to stand alone.

On 12th June the Education Committee ordered the school be officially closed until further notice to facilitate additional preparations to receive more evacuees. But all the teachers continued to work with children attending on a voluntary basis. No less than 94% attendance is recorded for that week but very few classes were held. Instead to support of the government's dig for victory campaign every spare space within the school grounds was dug up and prepared for cultivation.

The headmaster recorded in the log book for the 17^th June 1940: Received circular letter 483/1940 this states that children should be encouraged to attend school as usual but the registers would not be marked.  The response from the children was very good. The normal timetable was worked as far as possible with exception that extra time was devoted to the gardens.

Harold Hepworth and the now legendary articles he wrote for the Bletchley and District Gazette are so often all these years later are frequently shared on social media.

In writing MK Today I am taking inspiration from Harold Hepworth, perhaps one day I will be able to match his high standard of journalism. Sadly neither Bletchley and its District nor anywhere in Milton Keynes has a publication of the quality Mr Hepworth wrote for.

Back to Bletchley Park but not to the days of Lady Leon, come with me to 1974 when Dennis Hamley was a tutor at the teacher training college located in the park and I was a student. Dennis Hamley is now a widely read author of books for children. No longer living in our City but when he did his home was on Walley Drive, Bletchley. Dennis Hamley tried hard to encourage me to write stories for children.

Who was the Chairman of Milton Keynes Development Corporation ?  Don’t you dare tell me you do not know !

John Jock Middleton Campbell, Baron Campbell of Eskan was born in 1912. In the early

stages of his career he took control of his family’s sugar estates, in Guyana. He became chairman of the company, Booker Brothers, McConnell and Co. in 1952. He was Chairman of Milton Keynes Development Corporation. NO, he didn’t keep a diary during his chairmanship.

Booker Brothers. McConnell and Co. The Booker Prize is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.  The Booker Prize was first awarded in 1969, two years after the founding of Milton Keynes.

Tom Maschler and Graham C Green came up with the idea for the prize and found backing from Booker McConnell. Ian Fleming of James Bond fame was a good friend of Booker and Milton Keynes Development Corporation Chairman Jock Campbell. Fleming died in 1964. Before his friend died, Campbell established an authors division within Booker McConnell and bought a 51% share in the profits of Fleming’s books. The Booker Author Division would go on to acquire rights of Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Harold Pinter and others.

Amazon began life as a book seller and publisher. My first book was published in 1992 and in September 1997 Amazon accepted me to its author’s list, My first published work was  The Story Of A Teenage Entrepreneur (FAILED). Did you know that Amazon sub-contracted the printing of books in its early UK days to a factory in Milton Keynes. I now have more than 120 books, e-books, short stories and essays published by Amazon.

In posing my opening question: Could Milton Keynes be considered to be a City of Literature ? I am including fiction, no-fiction and all genre where words are placed in a order to share thoughts from the writer.

I like to write fiction but as you know I have a passion for writing about Milton Keynes. Within such my mentor is Frank Markham and I am so proud to have met this incredible man when I was a teacher trainee student in Bletchley Park. His twin volume work published in the early 1970’s THE HISTORY OF MILTON KEYNES AND DISTRICT is compulsive reading. It took him more than twenty years to write.

Over decades I have said that no person should be allowed to serve on Milton Keynes Council without having read cover to cover Sir Frank Markham’s work. However, given the universal failure of Milton Keynes councillors to respond to letters and e-mails sent to them I do wonder if any of them can actually read or write !

Within MILTON KEYNES THE CITY OF LEGEND I suggest that Stony Stratford Library should be renamed The Frank Markham Library. Frank was a Stony Stratford man. I wrote to the library, I wrote to Stony Stratford Town Council, I wrote to the Member of Parliament for Stony Stratford. Did any of them reply ? DID THEY HECK !

If you take a song and remove the words you are in many cases left with an amazing piece of literature. I use the word amazing with purpose.  Which is the song that has been recorded by more other artists than any other ? AMAZING GRACE written by John Newton in Olney Milton Keynes. Elvis Presley The King of Rock and Roll recorded a truly beautiful version with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as his backing group. Go to YouTube and you will find US president Barack Obama singing these Milton Keynes words.

Agatha Christie is the world’s best selling writer of all time. Tentative it may be but Jock Campbell linked her writing to Milton Keynes.

Within my writing I sometimes dream plots and characters, a few weeks ago I had a very

strange dream. No make that a crazy dream where my little grey cells slumbered well into excess.

In August 2022 I held a garden party where I gave away copies of my books to guests in exchange for donations to the childrens’ department at University Hospital Milton Keyes. It was a great success raising £330. I am not planning a similar event this year, 2023, but in my dream I did. I will now share my dream as the world’s best - selling author of all time came to Milton Keynes.

So let me set the scene. A beautiful summer’s day, birds are singing and the sun is shining through the trees. I am sitting on a garden bench when a lady I thought but was not sure I recognised came and sat beside me.

ME: Hello, welcome. Welcome to the garden party.

GUEST: So you are a writer Max ?

ME; Yes, Max is my pen name. My real name is David but my friends call me Dave.

GUEST: My husband’s name is Max and my name is Agatha.

ME; Agatha Christie ? Surely not, I thought I recognised you, what are you doing here in Milton Keynes ?

AGATHA: It was Milton Keynes that brought me here, I want to talk to you about your book Milton Keynes The City Of Legend.

ME: Oh ! You’ve read  it ?

AGATHA: I have David. (Emphasis on David and not Dave.)

ME: So the world’s best-selling author has read a book from the world’s lowest-selling writer. You were the one who bought it on Amazon. That’s all a bit embarrassing.

Somehow I do not think I will be finishing that piece of rubbish and adding it to my Amazon Bookshelf !

How many books has Agatha Christie sold ? In excess of two billion. Will anyone one day overtake that number. Well it won’t be me but wouldn’t it be nice if in one of our City’s school there is a young man or lady who will.

MK Today - 4th February 2023

Dirty Old Town – Dirty New City – Scruffy City

Dirty Old Town – Dirty New City. That was the very first piece of writing I had published about Milton Keynes. It was something The Bletchley and District Gazette elaborated from something I submitted to its letter page. The Bletchley and District Gazette, what an iconic newspaper that was back in the mid 1970’s when I penned a comparison of living on a mud filled building site, as Milton Keynes was, with the song Dirty Old Town. It was very tongue in cheek, you could not build the biggest project our country had seen in the sterile conditions of an operating theatre. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, you can’t build a city without creating mud.

It now forms the opening chapter in my book MILTONKEYNES THE CITY OF LEGEND.

I want you to do something. I want you to step outside your home, how far do you have to walk before encounter a piece of litter ?

Milton Keynes today is a Scruffy City !

Right across our city, parish councils have placed and dutifully maintain litter bins, they are doing their bit. Sadly far too many ignorant residents are not doing their bit by using them. It is not the council, parish or city’s responsibility to pick up litter it is the duty of its criminal citizens not to drop litter.

Milton Keynes has a recycling programme we can be proud of but it is not the council’s responsibility to pick up litter and enter it into the recycling system.

YES, dropping litter is a crime ! Conviction in a magistrate’s court can result in a fine of up to £2,500 but when did the Scruffy City of Milton Keynes last impose such a fine from its court on Silbury Boulevard ?

Fly posting is also a criminal offence. Where an offence is proven the contravener shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine, currently not exceeding £1,000  and, in the case of a continuing offence, £100 for each day during which the offence remains after conviction.

This particular Roofing Services fly posting, along with many others, has been in place for way beyond a year. As I understand the matter this IS the responsibility of Milton Keynes City Council to act.

I sent a draft copy of this edition to Milton Keynes Councillor Adam Rolfe who is my ward councillor and for West Bletchley where this fly post can be found.  I asked for his comment to include here. HE FAILED TO REPLY !

I also invited Iain Stewart Member of Parliament to comment and give his wider point of view on Milton Keynes – The Scruffy City, The City of Litter. HE FAILED TO REPLY !

Politicians, the litter of society ?

I am not a goodie-goodie but can honestly say I have never dropped litter at any time within my long life. I just was not brought up that way. Not dropping litter does not make one a goodie-goodie, such is simply being a responsible member of society. Dropping litter makes one a BADDY-BADDY !

LITTER ! A recent event has made the irresponsible dropping of such very personal to me.

On Thursday 8^th December 2022 litter within Scruffy Milton Keynes became very personal to me.

Walking across Morrisons car park at Westcroft I inadvertently placed one foot inside a loop of plastic packaging in the click and collect area. Without realising this had happened I placed my other foot on the loop and fell flat on my face. I broke my nose, bruised my face, sprained my left hand and left knee, bruised the ribs on the left side of my body and broke my right arm. I had an operation to put a plate in my arm and needed extended support and physiotherapy in order to get better.

I am NOT here seeking sympathy, not never no way, but I am asking for contempt be directed to all disrespectful people who would have Milton Keynes become the SCRUFFY CITY !

My injuries were extensive but minor. I doubt the costs to our NHS in its present over-stretched situation were minor !

I received only the finest care from University Hospital Milton Keynes. Attending A & E I did not experience a long waiting time. Three doctors worked on my broken arm, pulling the bones into place before wrapping them into a plaster cast. The following Sunday – YES SUNDAY – I received an operation to place a metal plate in my arms. Surgeons working on a Sunday were not doing overtime, they were doing what every front-line NHS worker does – they were going the extra mile to care with love for their patients. Then received and am still receiving weekly physiotherapy sessions.

What is my treatment costing in money ? I don’t know, does anybody know ? What I do know is the idiot litter bug who caused my accident added the financial burden to our overstretched NHS.

Dirty Old Town – Dirty New City – Milton Keynes The Scruffy City – The City Of Litter - Politicians, the litter of society 

ENOUGH !  STOP IT ! MILTON KEYNES DESERVES BETTER !

Given the interest in these weekly features I am going rto make them twice weekly, Saturday and Wednesday. Next Wednesday MK Writers. Watch this space.