Interview with Robert Devereaux (b.1943).

Robert Deveraux moved to Newport Pagnell from Leeds with his parents in 1957, his father working at Aston Martin. He remembers looking forward to fishing when he moved. He was apprenticed at Wolverton Works to be a carpenter/joiner and has had his own business for twenty-five years; having a contact at Milton Keynes Development Corporation, ‘we just worked, more or less, for MKDC until they finished’, so he saw a lot of the city’s development. He comments on the local architecture.

He recalls the lack of amenities in Newport for young people when he first arrived, comments on the effect the new city has had on Newport, and the continuing lack of youth activities. But he considers that there is plenty of work here. In his opinion the city centre is ‘brilliant’, and there are plenty of parks. For transport a car is essential, and he comments that young people find it difficult to get back from the centre at night.