Milton Keynes during the Cold War

Another DRAFT chapter in Milton Keynes The City of Legend. Are you old enough to remember the Cold War. Here are some of my MK memories.

It is said that if you can remember the 1960’s you weren’t there.

If you can remember the Cold War you don’t know what you are talking about.

Well I was around in the 1960’s, it was my teenage decade. I was around in the Cold War, all of it, and I can remember so much but to be honest with you all I don’t have a clue what I am talking about !

January 1967 and Milton Keynes was born. As the year moved on we had the Summer of Love which while happening in San Francisco echoed around the world. I was sixteen, going on seventeen and having left school was working as a retail management trainee in Birmingham. The Summer of Love, a protest against the evil of war – The Vietnam War.

Harold Wilson’s government gave us Milton Keynes, it  gave us our Open University but right

across the nation it gave my generation our lives. Wilson refused to allow our country to be drawn into the Vietnam War. Where would I  be, where would others of my age be, where would our country be, where would Milton Keynes be if we had been a part of Vietnam ?

At school I asked a teacher what the Vietnam War was all about, he replied that he did not know and doubted anyone did. How many can answer that question today  ? Those who were in favour of the war would say it was part of the Cold War and the prevention of communism. I have studied the events of this terrible war which ran from 1^st  November 1955 to 30^th  April 1975, it was all about denying Vietnam independence and fearing such would lead to communism spreading within the Cold War.

Living in the times history has dubbed the Cold War it was not a case of IF there will be World War Three but  WHEN will World War Three happen ? People have asked me how did we all live our daily lives with the Sword of Damocles hanging over us ? We just got on with our lives, perhaps I am looking back through rose-tinted glasses but there was far more positivity within society in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1990’s than we experience today.

When Barry Hines published his book Kestrel For A Knave in 1968, followed by the film version Kes, it was a teenage success well into the 1980’s. Did you read it at school ? Barry Hines also wrote the script for Threads in 1984 which was set post nuclear attack in England’s tenth largest city, Sheffield. Today’s population of Sheffield is around three quarters of a million, here in Milton Keynes there are around one quarter of a million of us.

The Berlin Wall came down on Thursday 9^th November 1989 and I don’t mind telling you there was more than one tear in my eye as I watched reports on television news. The Cold War was over.

January 1967 to November 1989, Milton Keynes from its early childhood through to its adolescence was part of the Cold War, part of the Cold War as was every town, city and country in the land.

The nuclear attack siren for Bletchley Water Eaton was located on the roof of Leon School’s tower block. There were others all over the New City but as with thousands up and down the country, all  semi-secret. I only know of this siren as I worked at Leon. Had that siren sounded in defence of attack it would have given but two minutes, one hundred and twenty seconds warning of a nuclear explosion. Stand somewhere, anywhere in Milton Keynes and count  to one hundred and twenty. How far  could you  run in order to find shelter  ? What kind of shelter could there be within which to escape an atomic bomb ?

The kitchen and dining room area of Leon School were included within the government’s civil defence plan for Milton Keynes. Perhaps now forgotten there would be many other locations so named across the designated area.

Bletchley Park may have been the home of the codebreakers in World War II but it also played a role within the Cold War. Driving or walking along Whalley Drive adjacent to Bletchley Park a series of aerials and radar scanners could be seen, secret but clearly visible. These belonged to the Diplomatic Wireless Service communicating with embassies and their secret services with the Cold War. Part of what we call today GCHQ.

Living in Bletchley  Park in the early 1970’s when Britain faced a fuel and power crisis there were three day working weeks and television shut down at nine o’clock. Power cuts were frequent. Not in Bletchley Park. When the National Grid switched off the lights a generator somewhere in the park took over. We were all told this was left over from the war but surely that was a lie. Over twenty years since the war ended to say it was left over from the war cannot be true. It was a fully maintained up to date piece of equipment on hand to keep the transmitters and receivers of Bletchley Park’s Diplomatic Wireless Service working.

At ground zero a nuclear explosion would vaporise anything and everything, everybody in the vicinity. The blast then spread out destroying everything in its path, Within the blast was the deadly nuclear fallout.

How far is it from South Milton Keynes, Bletchley to Bicester ? Twenty-seven miles. It would take about an hour for someone in Milton Keynes to find shelter from the fallout of a nuclear  bomb dropped on Bicester. Why would Soviet Russia want to drop a nuclear bomb on Bicester ?

During the Cold War Bicester was one vast military encampment. Take a look at housing standing today from the time and their former use is clear.  There still is a military presence but tiny compared to what it once was. There were airfield from which low flying aircraft roared overhead across Milton Keynes every day. One former Bicester airfield now houses HMP Bullingdon, shortly before its entrance the road is crossed by the lines of a narrow gauge railway which was used to move weapons and equipment from one area of the base to another.

World War One, The Great War to end all wars, gave us World War Two. World War Two gave us the Cold War. Thank god it never turned hot.

 

Who remembers these Milton Keynes Youth Clubs

 

I am now in the edit ing provcess for my work Milton Keynes The City Of Legend. I wasn't planning this kaleidoscope through this subject but when the idea came to me early one morning i thought: Why not ?

This is still in DRAFT form but have a read and see if you remember some teenage legends.

What’s the kaleidoscope coming up with here then, some Citywide youth club ? No, we will go city wide in a bit looking at youth club heritage but the Milton Keynes I  am talking about here is Milton Keynes Village – Milton Keynes Village Youth Club.

When I attended Milton Keynes College of Education in Bletchley Park I was primarily there to qualify as a teacher but I also trained and qualified as a youth and community worker. Forget the community bit, in my second year – 1972 to 1973, we were given an assignment to set up a new youth club. To set up, not to run so our task was firstly to find a location in need of a youth club, then to recruit a management committee and finally to appoint a volunteer youth leader.

Location. Milton Keynes Village had a strong community so it was in this direction our tutor pointed us. Fifty years ago I can remember the chairman was a former farmer, former because Milton Keynes Development Corporation had compulsory purchased his farm and put him out of business. He loved Milton Keynes Village but despised Milton Keynes New City. I rather think his agreeing to work with we students was a way of putting two fingers up to those who had forced him off his land and poured money into his bank account.

In due course Milton Keynes Youth Club opened its doors to village teenagers.

Wilton School, now part of Lord Grey School, used to run a lunchtime youth club to keep its pupils out of trouble during its ninety minute lunch hour.

Before it was sold off, demolished and saw a collection of flats built on its site Saint Martin’s Church Hall. Once a week in 1971 AND 1972 it hosted one evening a week Lakes Youth Club. Geography was a bit wrong, Saint Martin’s Church Hall was nowhere near the Lakes Estate !

Every student within the youth and community course was assigned to a local youth club as part of our training. I drew the short straw ! Lakes Youth Club was little more than juvenile delinquency bouncing round the walls of Saint Martin’s Church Hall !

In complete contrast and a mega legend in its own time was Bletchley Youth Centre on Derwent Drive, West Bletchley. At its height two full-time youth workers were employed running a huge range of fun activities for local teenagers.

At the other end of our City and a mirror of its Bletchley cousin was Newport  Pagnell Youth Club.

Teenagers in our New City were well provided with generous funding from Buckinghamshire County Council’s education budget.

When Bletchley Leisure Centre opened within it was the Compass Club. When this location opened I feared it  would attract kids away from Bletchley Youth Centre but our New City’s expansion even its southern tip there was room for both. And more.

I wonder if any of my readers grew up living in Napier Street, Bletchley. Who remembers Napier Street Kids.

Who knows where Bowlers Bridge is ? Who remembers Bowlers Bridge Youth Club ?

Interaction with its canal boat and pony riding. A huge legend in its own time of the 1980’s.

Peartree Bridge Youth Centre, on Peartree Bridge of course. This was also the office for BAYC – Buckinghamshire Association of Youth Clubs.

All long gone. Are there youth clubs in the City of Milton Keynes today ?

In the 1990’s Bucks County Council even funded a detached youth worker. Based at Leon School his role was to work with teenagers in Water Eaton and the Lakes Estate.

To end this little kaleidoscope let me ask the question again: Are there youth Clubs in the City of Milton Keynes today ?  Or is everything on-line by way  of smart-phones !

Milton Keynes Time Capsules

This is a DRAFT chapter for my work Milton Keynes The City of Legend. In it I speak of two tinme capsules I know have been hidden for future generations to find. Can you  help me ? Do you know of any others about our city I could include ? Message me or drop me an e-mail: dashford566@gmail.com THANKS

TARDIS – Time And Relative Dimension In Space – TARDIS

You’ll need to be as geriatric as I am to remember the very first episode of Doctor Who broadcast by the BBC on Saturday 23^rd November 1963. Audience figures were well down on those expected so it was run again the following week before that very first series was run out. Why were audience figures down ? Because the world’s attention was focussed on news reports following the assassination of US President John F Kennedy the day before. Yes, I did watch that first episode and for a while all those following but I have never become a fan of the Doctor whizzing through time and space in a police telephone box. I am geriatric enough to remember such blue boxes on our streets in the days before portable two-way radio.

Not a fan of Doctor Who but within my writing time travel is a major genre. My very first book, published in 1992, written for my son’s twelfth birthday was Peter’s Magic Fountain Pen. Peter’s great-grandfather gives him a pen which when Peter uses it to write he is transported

to the time and place in his story.

Set aside for the moment while I finish writing this kaleidoscope through our City of Milton Keynes, I am currently writing My Ka’s Adventure In A Brave New World where the central character is taken forward in time to help the few remaining inhabitants of our planet understand why extinction came about.

Speaking once with a professor of astrophysics I asked him if time travel was theoretically possible. His answer was so long and complicated I am not sure if he said yes or no.

I am writing this chapter to tell you that time travel is possible and where it has happened in Milton Keynes.

Come back with me to the early 1970’s. At the junction of Buckingham Road an Water Eaton Road before Abbey National, now Santander stole the land there was a football pitch on which local kicked a ball about every Saturday. (Playing football on a Sunday back in those days was not the done thing.) Within the foundations of the building a group of the pitch’s former players put together a time capsule inside a football and buried it.

I wonder what they put into their football before lacing it up. Do you remember when footballs were laced up ? We are talking half a century ago, no internet, no mobile phones, computers were science fiction as far as the general public was concerned. £1 in 1975 is worth £10 today. When some distant day in the future how special will it be when this time capsule is opened.

Under the direction of community artist Bill Billings Leon School students put together a time capsule which was placed in the stomach of Leon Dinosaur during its construction in 1990. Sadly, unless the decaying statue is rescued as a matter of priority we will here in the third decade of the twenty-first century have an insight into teenage life in the last decade of the twentieth century.

This book is all about heritage, NOT history. History is bunk and static while heritage moves and travels with time. I am going to take a copy of this book and seal it into a time capsule to be secretly buried for Milton Keynes Citizens hundreds of years into the future to find and read not of 2023 but of Milton Keynes heritage as far back as the Romans.

Saturday 6^th May 2023 will be the coronation day of His Majesty King Charles III. I would like to make a suggestion to you as something you can do for your family in decades, centuries to come within our monarch’s coronation day. Create your own time capsule with contents reflecting your life at this time. Will you do that ? Your family giving heritage to its future members.

Wouldn’t it be nice if all cities had as many time capsules as Milton Keynes.

 

 

 

MILTON KEYNES MEDIA FAILS TO ENGAGE AND SUPPORT RESCUING A LOST LEGEND WITHIN OUR CITY

MILTON KEYNES MEDIA FAILS TO ENGAGE AND SUPPORT RESCUING A LOST LEGEND WITHIN OUR CITY

I have now finished writing the DRAFT text for Milton Keynes The City Of Legend – One hundred and sixty-nine thousand, three hundred and six words. Within this I want to rescue some lost legends. The first of these being The Satellite Pub on Whaddon Way.

This is the DRAFT text for that chapter.

How old were you when you had your first pint in a pub ?

You’ll probably need to be of my aging generation for that question to have anything of relevance, the pub trade today in the third decade of the twenty-first century is nothing like that of 1967 when Milton Keynes was born.

So how old was I when I had my first pint in a pub ? I would have been sixteen and indeed in the year of 1967. NAUGHTY BOY ! A lawbreaker, the legal age to drink alcohol in a public house was eighteen.

In his book The Ultra Secret, F. W. Winterbotham says that The Three Trees was the watering hole of Bletchley Park’s codebreakers. During my time as a student teacher in Bletchley Park my watering hole and that of my mates was The Eight Belles. It was there we spent money from our student grant. (Note the wording student grant and not student loan. It is not only the pub trade that has declined in modern-day society !)

It was in 1977, ten years after my first illegal pint, that I learned to drive. I made a conscious decision to stop drinking alcohol as it simply did not equate with being behind the wheel of a car. If I had not taken this step then perhaps I could write another book: The Legendary Pubs of Milton Keynes. From Woughton on the Green to Milton Keynes Village all the way to the world famous Cock and Bull Inns of Stony Stratford our pubs have more legends per pint of beer than any other establishments in the land.

I want here to talk about three original pubs on Whaddon Way, Bletchley, and one which I am asking my readers to lift out of obscurity and celebrate its lost heritage.

Once upon a time there were three public houses on Whaddon Way; The Dolphin which is still there, The White Hart which today is the site for a school and The Satellite whose original building stands today accommodating a branch of the Co-op !

On 10^th July 1961 America launched the world’s first telecommunications satellite TELSTAR. I believe it is still in Earth’s orbit but ceased functioning shortly after its launch. How

many telecommunications satellites are orbiting the world today ?

As kids in the summer of 1961 we used to mistune our valve operated family radio sets, listen to the squeaking static and say we were tuned into Telstar. My Dad I remember saying we should invest money in satellite communication as it was the future. A bit eccentric my Dad !

I am not a fan of technology and the way it controls our lives but I never drive a car without using a sat nav – Satellite Navigation System.  Sometimes I set it to give me a route to a destination I am unfamiliar with but in general I like having the map silently on screen showing me where I am, the speed I am driving and the speed limit of the road. It is good to be able to check out where the petrol stations are and around breakfast time McDonald’s and its waiting hash browns. All of this comes from my little car being satellite connected to a twenty-first Telstar descendent up in the sky.

The year after Telstar’s launch the British pop group The Tornados released a fantastic piece of music which made it to number one in the UK charts and across the Atlantic and the home of the world’s first telecommunications satellite it also hit number one. Instrumental music does not come much better than this. (Check it out on YouTube and its iconic music will be beamed to you by way of a telecommunications satellite !)

For many years the Satellite Pub stood proudly on Bletchley’s Whaddon Way celebrating Telstar and its theme tune from The Tornados. It was at the turn of the century that the pub trade went into decline, one of its victims was our iconic Satellite Pub. It became a branch of Morrissons Local, my son was its manager, then moved to become a branch of the Co-op. Today it is a lost and forgotten heritage of Milton Keynes.

Did you learn about the Rochdale Pioneers when you were at school ? In 1844 a group of mill workers who history has named The Rochdale Pioneers opened a little shop which was the first Co-operative Society store around which today our Whaddon Way satellite orbits. Here’s an iconic name from Milton Keynes legend, who knows who Wilf Griffin was ? As head of Milton Keynes Co-op in our city’s early days and having met him on a couple of occasions I can tell you he was a very special man. Google his name and you will not find anything. That is sad !

If Wilf was still around today I would not be ending this twist of our Kaleidoscope in the way I am, Mr Griffin would have come up with the idea way before and would not have left it as an idea, he would have made it happen. It does not sit on land which was within his estate and several decades after he left us but for certain Mr Bletchley aka Sir Herbert Leon would never have allowed our legend to be lost.

Can we persuade the Co-op to put a small plaque outside its door celebrating The Satellite ? Nothing major or complex, just a simple notice preserving this part of Milton Keynes heritage.

A BIT OF AN AFTER THOUGHT !

Milton Keynes is infested with silly little four wheeled robots scurrying all over the place

delivering bags of crisps and the odd Mars Bar !  I presume they use satellite communication to dribble their way around our city streets. As a vegetarian I totally oppose the slaughter of any animal but a robotatarien I am not so show me the way to the robot abattoir and I heard them all down its road ! Beam me up Scotty !

I have written to both the CEO of Co-op UK and to the local branch manager but have not received replies. I am thinking postal strikes may be causing the delay. I have asked local MP Iain Stewart and Milton Keynes Councillor for West Bletchley Adam Rolfe to write letters supporting this simple campaign.

I e-mailed our local media, such as it is, one week ago seeking support but universally nobody has replied. In contrast, posting on social media I received a little over four hundred likes of support.

BBC Look East – try looking West and you may notice there is a place on the horizon called

Milton Keynes.

BBC Three Counties Radio – how many listeners do you have ? Is it as many as are supporting on social media are engaging ?

Milton Keynes Citizen – Can you imagine how quickly the original newspaper and the Bletchley Gazette would have grabbed hold of this.

As an attempt to spur action and have our media engage with the citizens of Milton Keynes my plan is to publish this blog then over then week-end Saturday 26^th and Sunday 27^th November see how many people will read and engage with the project. Then next week I will wave that number in front of the media and try again.

How well do you know Milton Keynes ?

 

With 142,614 words so far written I am well on course to publish MILTON KEYNES THE CITY OF LEGEND in January. One of the last chapters in the book will be a Milton Keynes General Knowlege Quiz. Hoe many can you answer ?

QUESTION ONE:

What was the name of the little girl who used to haunt Bletchley schools ?

QUESTION TWO:

How many trees are there in Milton Keynes ?

QUESTION THREE:

Who was the witchfinder for Woughton ?

QUESTION FOUR:

What was WARA ?

QUESTION FIVE:

When Herbert Leon won his case against the railway for nuisance how much damages did the court award him ?

QUESTION SIX:

Which Milton Keynes MP was black and white and read all over ?

QUESTION SEVEN:

What have Freddie Mercury, Michael Jackson and David Bowie got in common ? (Other than the fact that they are all dead ?

QUESTION EIGHT:

To which town should you ride a horse from Stony Stratford to ?

QUESTION NINE:

When was the kaleidoscope invented ?

QUESTION TEN:

Where was Milton Keynes Foodbank founded.

QUESTION ELEVEN:

What was the name of the Royal Navy ship Bletchley Road School sponsored during World War Two ?

QUESTION TWELVE:

Who was the first vice chancellor of the Open University ?

QUESTION THIRTEEN:

Just where in Milton Keynes will you find a pub named after our second in line to the throne ?

QUESTION FOURTEEN:

Before he was murdered in his own cathedral where did Thomas Becket preach in Milton Keynes ?

QUESTION FIFTEEN

What do the initials LBC stand for ?

QUESTION SIXTEEN:

Where is the smallest lock on Britain’s canal system to be found ?

QUESTION SEVENTEEN:

What was the slogan of Milton Keynes HAG ?

QUESTION EIGHTEEN:

When they passed away where were Sir Herbert and Lady Fanny Leon cremated ?

QUESTION NINTEEN:

Once known as Energy Park by what name is this area of Milton Keynes better known today ?

QUESTION TWENTY:

Where in Milton Keynes was the first branch of McDonald’s opened ?

QUESTION TWENTY-ONE:

At what volume did The Lord of Loud tell you to play music ?

QUESTION TWENTY-TWO:

Who was Wilf Griffin ?

QUESTION TWENTY-THREE:

What was number one in the UK charts on the day Milton Keynes was born ?

QUESTION TWENTY-FOUR:

By the number of artists, what is the most covered song in the world ?

QUESTION TWENTY-FIVE:

Betty ! Where would you once upon a time have found an operatic phantom living in Milton Keynes ?

QUESTION TWENTY-SIX:

In the days when music was played from vinyl discs, where in Milton Keynes was the groovy extractor ?

QUESTION TWENTY-SEVEN:

What do Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Leader of the Free French General De Gaulle and Supreme Ailed Commander Dwight D Eisenhour have in common ?

QUESTION TWENTY-EIGHT:

Who officially opened Central Milton Keynes Railway Station ?

QUESTION TWENTY-NINE:

During the Cold War where was the nuclear attack warning siren for Water Eaton located ?

QUESTION THIRTY:

Which Milton Keynes school called on Saturday Superstore to say I love you ?

QUESTION THIRTY-ONE:

Where in Bletchley did Margaret Thatcher buy her coats ?

QUESTION THIRTY-TWO:

Name the three ley lines about which the entire City of Milton Keynes is built.

QUESTTION THIRTY-THREE:

Who was Sir Herbert and Lady’s Leon’s chauffeur who lived in Leon Cottages ?

QUESTION THIRTY-FOUR:

Originally called Saints, now it is Chestnuts, for a time which councillor from the 1970’s gave his name to a local school ?

QUESTION THIRTY-FIVE:

How many war memorials are there in Milton Keynes ?

QUESTION THIRTY-SIX

Within which ancient document is Bletchley Park first mentioned ?

QUESTION THIRTY-SEVEN:

Within the Milton Keynes Development Corporation’s strategic plan what was the maximum hourly rate permissible  to charge for vehicle parking throughout the City ?

QUESTION THIRTY-EIGHT:

It was once known as Hogsty End but by what name do we call it today ?

QUESTION THIRTY-NINE:

In 2012 she carried the Olympic Torch through Milton Keynes, who taught more people in our New City to swim than any other person ?

QUESTION FORTY:

How many pints of blood does Wonderful Amazing Beautiful University Hospital use each year to care for its patients ?

QUESTION FORTY-ONE:

Who was the chairman of Milton Keynes Development Corporation ?

QUESTION FORTY-TWO:

Where was the terminus of Milton Keynes Dial-a-Bus ?

QUESTION FORTY-THREE:

He gave his name to a hospital in Oxford and also to a school inn Milton Keynes, who was he ?

QUESTION FORTY-FOUR:

Within which monarch’s coronation honours did Herbert Samuel Leon receive his knighthood ?

QUESTION FORTY-FIVE:

What category is HMP Woodhill ?

QUESTION FORTY-SIX:

They Opened Live Aid on 13^th July 1985 with Rocking All Over The World but where did Status Quo rock in Milton Keynes ?

QUESTION FORTY-SEVEN:

What event probably destroyed Queen Elanor’s Cross at Stony Stratford ?

QUESTION FORTY-EIGHT:

Which Milton Keynes school has a hit on YouTube with Uptown Funk ?

QUESTION FORTY NINE:

Who made the world’s finest cooked meat ?

QUESTION FIFTY:

Within which monarch’s coronation honours did Frank Markham receive his knighthood ?

QUESTION FIFTY-ONE:

Which Milton Keynes resident is the only singer to have received Grammy nominations on three different categories ?

QUESTION FIFTY-TWO:

Who was the chief architect of Milton Keynes Development Corporation ?

QUESTION FIFTY-THREE:

What does Donald Trump have to do with Windmill Hill ?

QUESTION FIFTY-FOUR:

Of which transport company was Herbert Leon a director ?

QUESTION FIFTY-FIVE:

In recent times it won the prestigious Pub of the Year award. According to F W Winterbotham it was a favourite watering hold of the codebreakers. What’s the pub’s name ?  (I trust you know who F W Winterbotham was.)

QUESTION FIFTY-SIX:

Why are there fifty-six questions in this quiz ?

Rescuing a lost Milton Keynes legend

Working on MILTON KEYNES THE CITY OF LEGEND is not meant to be a book of study and record, it is designed to be interactive. As I share my research and thinking I will invite readers to reflect and enjoy their own place within our City's proud heritage.

I NEED YOUR HELP. Take a read of the following DRAFT text. As I present my idea to those who can make it happen the more readers of this blog the more I can get them to take notice.

So..............

How old were you when you had your first pint in a pub ?

You’ll probably need to be of my aging generation for that question to have anything of relevance, the pub trade today in the third decade of the twenty-first century is nothing like that of 1967 when Milton Keynes was born.

So how old was I when I had my first pint in a pub ? I would have been sixteen and indeed in the year of 1967. NAUGHTY BOY ! A lawbreaker, the legal age to drink alcohol in a public house was eighteen.

In his book The Ultra Secret, F. W. Winterbotham says that The Three Trees was the watering hole of Bletchley Park’s codebreakers. During my time as a student teacher in Bletchley Park my watering hole and that of my mates was The Eight Belles. It was there we spent money from our student grant. (Note the wording student grant and not student loan. It is not only the pub trade that has declined in modern-day society !)

It was in 1977, ten years after my first illegal pint, that I learned to drive. I made a conscious decision to stop drinking alcohol as it simply did not equate with being behind the wheel of a car. If I had not taken this step then perhaps I could write another book: The Legendary Pubs of Milton Keynes. From Woughton on the Green to Milton Keynes Village all the way to the world famous Cock and Bull Inns of Stony Stratford our pubs have more legends per pint of beer than any other establishments in the land.

I want here to talk about three original pubs on Whaddon Way, Bletchley, and one which I am asking my readers to lift out of obscurity and celebrate its lost heritage.

Once upon a time there were three public houses on Whaddon Way; The Dolphin which is still there, The White Hart which today is the site for a school and The Satellite whose original building stands today accommodating a branch of the Co-op !

On 10^th July 1961 America launched the world’s first telecommunications satellite TELSTAR. I believe it is still in Earth’s orbit but ceased functioning shortly after its launch. How many telecommunications satellites are orbiting the world today ? As kids in the summer of 1961 we used to mistune our valve operated family radio sets, listen to the squeaking static and say we were tuned into Telstar. My Dad I remember saying we should invest money in satellite communication as it was the future. A bit eccentric my Dad !

I am not a fan of technology and the way it controls our lives but I never drive a car without using a sat nav – Satellite Navigation System.  Sometimes I set it to give me a route to a destination I am unfamiliar with but in general I like having the map silently on screen showing me where I am, the speed I am driving and the speed limit of the road. It is good to be able to check out where the petrol stations are and around breakfast time McDonald’s and its waiting hash browns. All of this comes from my little car being satellite connected to a twenty-first Telstar descendent up in the sky.

The year after Telstar’s launch the British pop group The Tornados released a fantastic piece of music which made it to number one in the UK charts and across the Atlantic and the home of the world’s first telecommunications satellite it also hit number one. Instrumental music does not come much better than this. (Check it out on YouTube and its iconic music will be beamed to you by way of a telecommunications satellite !)

For many years the Satellite Pub stood proudly on Bletchley’s Whaddon Way celebrating Telstar and its theme tune from The Tornados. It was at the turn of the century that the pub trade went into decline, one of its victims was our iconic Satellite Pub. It became a branch of Morrissons Local, my son was its manager, then moved to become a branch of the Co-op. Today it is a lost and forgotten heritage of Milton Keynes.

Did you learn about the Rochdale Pioneers when you were at school ? In 1844 a group of mill workers who history has named The Rochdale Pioneers opened a little shop which was the first Co-operative Society store around which today our Whaddon Way satellite orbits. Here’s an iconic name from Milton Keynes legend, who knows who Wilf Griffin was ? As head of Milton Keynes Co-op in our city’s early days and having met him on a couple of occasions I can tell you he was a very special man. Google his name and you will not find anything. That is sad !

If Wilf was still around today I would not be ending this twist of our Kaleidoscope in the way I am, Mr Griffin would have come up with the idea way before and would not have left it as an idea, he would have made it happen. It does not sit on land which was within his estate and several decades after he left us but for certain Mr Bletchley aka Sir Herbert Leon would never have allowed our legend to be lost.

I have writt en to the CEO of Co-op UK and to the branch manager. I have asked Iain Stewart MP and Milton Keynes Councillor Adam Rolfe if they would kindly write to both parties supporting the idea.

A BIT OF AN AFTER THOUGHT !

Milton Keynes is infested with silly little four wheeled robots scurrying all over the place delivering bags of crisps and the odd Mars Bar !  I presume they use satellite communication to dribble their way around our city streets. As a vegetarian I totally oppose the slaughter of any animal but a robotatarien I am not so show me the way to the robot abattoir and I heard them all down its road ! Beam me up Scotty !

I want to use this kaleidoscope chapter to get the Co-op to pace a plaque adjacent to the shop’s entrance celebrating its heritage. NOTE: I am not suggesting something from English Heritage which would be a complex and lengthy process. This would be something from the Co-op as a gift to its locality.