That Reminds Me was a weekly column published in the Bletchley Gazette from January 1973 to December 1978.
Originally from Yorkshire, Harold (Heppy) Hepworth had worked on The Gazette for twenty years. He preferred to describe himself as a reporter, though his title was officially Leader Writer or Assistant Editor. Later, we believe after his retirement, he began this series of articles on a wide variety of topics – though mostly about life and the characters in Bletchley. Our volunteers Wendy Williams and Penny Perdue have transcribed these stories and we present them now, as before, in a regular offering.
Creator
Harold Hepworth for the Bletchley Gazette
Place
Bletchley
Reference number
TRM
Records in this Collection
So the development corporation are determined to keep their new roads clean. I wish them luck; they have a big job on their hands – and feet – as all we older citizens of Bletchley know only too well.
Remember the mess when lorries were running through the town for the making of the M1? Remember ...
This week, my friends, I draw attention to three items of “news.”
ITEM 1. Fears about the possible disappearance of some of the smaller local authorities and dissatisfaction because their work is already being frustrated have been expressed at a meeting of the Winslow Rural Council.
ITEM 2. Because as yet there has been no announcement about ...
When I first saw the photograph with this column – which for once in a while was after, not before the paper was published – I thought it would do me fine. No-one would recognise me from that.
I did the photographer less than justice. Next day people in the town met me with grins and ...
The possibility that foreign workers may come to take up jobs in the new city of Milton Keynes has a very old familiar ring about it.
Ever since that war, foreign workers have been settling in the district, sometimes in not-inconsiderable numbers.
We have absorbed Poles, Latvians, Estonians, Italians, Pakistanis, Hungarians, even Russians. Could the brickworks in ...
Somewhere in the house are four certificates. One says I can swim. One says I can render first-aid. One says I can sing. And one says I can write shorthand.
I may come back to that one some time, but here I am concerned with the shorthand one – and if you are not interested in ...
MINERS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THE SALT OF THE EARTH
One day my father said: “How’d you like to be a journalist?”
“What’s that?” I asked, in all innocence and ignorance.
I am not sure I know the full answer yet. There are almost as many sorts of journalists as there are sorts of men and women. But I ...
Looking at Bletchley’s big new police station at the end of Sherwood Drive I find it hard to believe that I arrived in Bletchley in time to know the last of its long line of parish constables – those lawmen who were appointed in every parish long before regular police were thought of.
He was Mr. ...
It is hazardous to write about the weather nine days before the expected time of publication. Nevertheless, I am tempted to waive a lifetime’s rule by the fact that for almost the first time this winter I woke this Valentine’s Day to find a covering of snow on the ground. Not that I am going ...
Why did I come to North Bucks? It’s a question I have been asked several times since these articles began to appear. So I will clear it up without further ado.
First, I had married during the war – on a 36-hour pass from the army – and needed a place where my wife and I ...
I did not arrive in Bletchley in time to see its Home Guard companies. I wish I had. I heard quite a bit about them in my first few years here. In fact, the references still crop up – but sadly most of them are now found in the death notices of former members.
I hope ...
With all Bletchley’s progress over the past 27 years in terms of population and employment, it is interesting to note that in one respect at least it has sustained a fall in status during that times.
I refer to the removal of the area’s County Court from Bletchley to Leighton Buzzard which occurred some few years ...
In a northern county borough stands a building whose dome and clock and general solid Victorian magnificence are secondly only to that of the town hall itself.
They are the central premises of the town’s pioneer co-operative society.
High up on either side of the main door, two medallion-type heads of men are carved in stone. One ...
I suppose the name of Lord Longford means different things to different people. But whatever else it may mean it would be wrong to think of him as a killjoy. I can even tell you what he prefers in the shape of women’s legs.
You see, Lord Longford was formerly Lord Pakenham. He was a great ...
One Bletchley organisation which was revived after the war and which flourished for a decade but then sadly fell apart, was the town band. Occasionally meetings have been called in the hope of bringing it to life again, but so far without success.
Leading spirit in the revival was Mr. Bill Axby, who was the bandmaster. ...
Recently the Post Office lumbered us all with a set of six letters and figures to remember. They represent part of our new postal address. And thus, as far as the Post Office are concerned, we no longer live in Bucks. We live in MK something or other.
I don’t like it. Not that I blame ...
Surprisingly to me one of the first reactions I had to this series was from people interested by my piece about colliers and collieries. Then the Lofthouse incident happened and brought further requests. So here goes – just for you.
First I should say that when I first heard the name of Lofthouse on a radio ...
I took advantage of a week’s holiday recently to inspect one of the large properties I have had built. It was not yet complete and I thought I had better see where all that money was going before it went too far.
Others who had built it along with me, mainly ladies within about 15 years ...
In this year’s county council elections I voted for a winning candidate. So rare has that experience been for me all my voting life that if you, dear reader, are working for a particular candidate in any kind of public election the best thing you can do is to persuade me to vote for the ...
It’s easier to say hello to a new colleague that farewell to an old friend.
And when that happens to be a respected colleague at the end of his journalistic career, it’s a task that’s well nigh impossible.
Our attempt to do so is certain to come as a surprise to the man in question – H.S. ...
Regard with a touch of sadness the coming demise of the local district councils. I have known them since I came here at the end of the war, but how to begin writing about them is a problem. They are such a big subject and especially so in the case of the Bletchley Urban Council, ...
The recent story about the efforts to transform a gravel pit on the Wolverton-Newport Pagnell road into a wild life sanctuary made interesting reading for me. So do the new fortnightly nature notes in the Gazette.
They remind me of the time, over 20 years ago, when every couple of months or so I had a ...
A Cockney is born to the sound of Bow’s bells. I was born to the sound of Ilkla Moor baht ‘at. And if you ever try to sing that please sing Ilkla Mooer not Ilkley More. You will be less of an outsider.
How the tune of Ilkla Moor ever became invested with those verses I ...
A reporter in a growing town is bound to be in at the birth of many things, some of which live on and others which die almost as soon as they are born.
It was thus that I became the very first passenger on the Bletchley town bus service when it came into operation on December ...
One of the fascinations of living in Bletchley for the past 27 years has been to observe its growth from a town of around 9,000 people to one of over 30,000.
It has been a real pioneering job in almost every way, not so very unlike an American Mid-west development except for the absence of six-shooting ...
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