Interview with Doris E. White (b.1922).

Doris White came to New Bradwell c.1940-41 with her widowed mother; they ‘self evacuated’ from London to live with an aunt. In 1967 she married and moved to Wolverton and first heard of the plans for Milton Keynes through an article in the Wolverton Express newspaper. She talks of her misgivings, wondering whether the contrast between city and country life would be too great for the newcomers. She also felt that the local residents’ way of life might be affected by the coming changes. In her opinion, some of the new architecture was ugly, for example, the cricket pavillion in Stony Stratford known as the ‘Pineapple’ and the ‘Agora’ in Wolverton. The benefits of activities at the Agora sounded impressive, but ‘things fizzled out’ and the building split Wolverton geographically in two.

She recalls her sadness at the destruction of the allotments, the arrival of the diggers and how the allotment holders were given notice; Greenleys is now on the site of the former allotments. She notes that the first Asian resident in Wolverton, lodged with her neighbour and stayed in touch on moving away. To end her interview she reads her own poem ‘Stantonbury 1975’.