Interview with Shelley Wyn-de-Bank (b.1972).
Shelley Wyn-de-Bank, an artist, was born in new Bradwell; she talks of her family and her childhood; her father worked at Wolverton Works. She remembers her first visit to the city centre with a neighbour, aged about seven: it was ‘awe inspiring’ because they lived in a fairly rural area, had no car and shopped locally. She remembers being knocked down by a car, breaking her leg, and having to go to Northampton Hospital. She talks of local reactions to new housing in new Bradwell which encroached on the fields, and the demolition of the old cottages. She contrasts the new housing with the original Victorian terraced houses there: ‘I think they’re lovely and I think to plop something like that bang in the middle of New Bradwell I think it’s vile.’
Although regretting the decline in community spirit, she is not against progress; in her opinion the new town offers new opportunities. She contrasts shopping in the old days with the present and talks of her education at New Bradwell and Radcliffe Schools. She currently lives in Spencer Street cooperative, which she loves. She comments on new buildings including the Theatre and Xscape; she is grateful that there is still plenty of countryside within easy reach: ‘you have to embrace progress and … the fact that you’re going to have to build more houses to accommodate everybody’. She enjoys cycling on the redways. In her opinion, the city provides much for her nine-year-old son to experience.
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