Oral history audio recordings of residents who moved to Milton Keynes (1968-1978) and later became employees of Milton Keynes Development Corporation.
The ‘Peoples History of Milton Keynes’ project includes approximately 324 oral history interviews recorded by and on behalf of the Living Archive. This selection of 15 interviews were recorded between July 2000 and October 2001 with residents who moved into the area designated as Milton Keynes and were later employed by MKDC. The interviews in most part cover the interviewee’s reminiscences about the development of the new town, and their thoughts on the subsequent changes.
Some interviewees have requested that the transcript should only be accessed for educational purposes.
Extent
18 audio tape cassettes
Reference number
PMK/006
Records in this Group
Peter Waterman moved from Hatfield to the Milton Keynes area in 1968, when he was appointed as a planning officer for the Church of England, and secretary of the Bishop of Oxford’s Ecumenical Committee. He discusses his job as vicar, the Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC), local politics and his feelings about the new city. ...
Michael Kelly and his family moved to Milton Keynes in 1973 from London, when his father’s job moved from London Bridge to Potter’s Bar. They first rented a house from the Milton Keynes Development Corporation in Fullers Slade,and in 1975 his parents bought a new house in Eaglestone. Aged fifteen, he remembers being resentful of ...
Peter Bunnage moved with his family to Newton Longville, Milton Keynes in 1970, aged nine, when his Father got a promotion in his telecom company and moved to Bletchley Park. Later, Peter became a landscaping apprentice at the Milton Keynes Development Corporation, completing a three year course, where he worked all across MK and had ...
Brian O’Sullivan moved to Milton Keynes in 1972 as a newly wed, having been offered a job and house by the local council. He describes the MIlton Keynes landscape in the early days, with mud all around and only one new road open. When he left his council job, he worked for a ...
Neil Higson moved in 1975 to Stantonbury, Milton Keynes and established a small private landscaping practice in Stony Stratford. Fred Lloyd Roche had been impressed with Neil’s work in Runcorn new town, had asked him to move to Milton Keynes and assisted him with setting up the private practice. Neil describes how the practice ...
Louise Roche moved to Milton Keynes aged 10 when her father, Fred Lloyd Roche, was appointed General Manager of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation. She recalls growing up in Milton Keynes and the great changes she saw as the city developed. She talks about seeing the developments ‘from the inside’, as it were, because ...
Jane Jeavons was born in Belbridge, Sussex and grew up in Surrey and Kent. She moved to Peartree Bridge in Milton Keynes in 1978, with her husband and children when her husband was appointed a headteacher of a school in Netherfield. When she moved to Milton Keynes she explains that she felt like a ...
Janice Walker moved to Bletchley in 1968 because of her husband’s career move. She applied for a job with the Milton Keynes Development Corporation and became a supervisor for the Punch Card Room, working at the office in Wavendon Tower for two years. She left the MKDC to work for the Open University, but ...
Wayland Tunley moved to Milton Keynes in 1972. He considered it was ‘ the place to be’ for qualified architects at that time because of the magnitude of the project and the opportunity work with architects such as Derek Walker and Fred Roche. Once he was living in the Milton Keynes area, he applied for ...
Susanne Shaw moved to Olney in 1974 when her husband obtained a post at the Open University. She initially applied for a job as a secretary at the Milton Keynes Development Corporation but a conversation with Lena Galloway, Personal Assistant to John Platt, led to an offer of an interview in the Information and Press ...
Carol Loxton moved to the area in 1972 when her husband took a post at the Open University. After three months living in Olney, they moved to Woughton Park. At that time she was a housewife and worked at Wavendon House School as a supply teacher for a few months. She then became ...
Marilyn Tamblin came to Bletchley in 1967 from Hampshire and has lived at the same address ever since. She has worked as a book-keeper in about half a dozen jobs in Milton Keynes, but particularly enjoyed her varied work on the Temporary Register of the Milton Keynes Development Corporation (MKDC). She remembers arrivals of ...
Pat Thomas moved to Bletchley, Milton Keynes from Bedfordshire in 1978 with her family when her husband took a job at the Open University. She recalls memories of Milton Keynes when she first arrived: the many building sites, mud, Lloyds Court and the building of the city centre shops. She comments that their ...
June Whittaker moved to Milton Keynes in 1969 to join her husband who had been appointed to a post with Milton Keynes Development Corporation. After living in Shenley for a year, they then bought their current house. On MK she comments: ‘I felt that there was never going to have been anything quite like ...
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