Interview with Michael Brace (b.1941) on employment and family life in Bletchley.

Michael Brace describes his final year at Bletchley Grammar School and leaving to become a tradesman apprentice at Wolverton Works. He describes the apprenticeship programme and talks of the dangerous aspects; he calls the Works ‘a dump’. But it was difficult to progress in a career there. Socially, the Freeman Memorial Youth Club and cycling filled his time, he also used to visit Greenways cafe. He talks of cycling to work and describes his club cycling activities, training for 50 miles twice a week and taking part in races. Specialist bikes came from Horace Shillingford at Leighton Buzzard.

Girlfriends got in the way of cycling, but in 1961 he married Maureen, also a London incomer. They moved to London because of lack of housing for local people in Bletchley, and he transferred to the Stratford Works. His marriage lasted only 8 months, but he stayed in London. Stratford Works closed, but as a trained fitter he found a new job easily.

His parents began fostering Dr Barnardo’s children, and eventually had adopted five or six, mostly of mixed race. ‘You can imagine going down Bletchley with that lot and the looks that you get!’ He notes that his father was able to spend a lot more time with this ‘second family’ than with his actual children.

In 1966 he remarried and in 1968 he and his wife moved back next door to his parents in Bletchley to start a new family. Jobs were easy to find: he worked for Filtrona for 15 years, and then became an Abbey Life salesman, which he enjoyed. He comments that Bletchley had become less rural and more suburban between 1961 and 1966. He thought ‘Bigger Brighter Better Bletchley’ a good plan, but since Milton Keynes was developed, in his opinion Bletchley has ‘ gone downhill’. He cites lack of use of the Leisure Centre and Bletchley shops as evidence of decline.