We are always celebrating Milton Keynes as a forward thinking, big business magnet, and that’s fine and true enough.
But it’s always nice to look over our shoulder at what came before too, and no-one can do it as successfully as the folks at the Living Archive.
They have just issued Milton Keynes Through the Lens, a DVD giving a fabulous history of our city in moving images taken from archive footage from the 1940s to the here and now.
It shows our city as captured by professional and amateurs alike, and it makes for an engrossing view.
These days, Milton Keynes Theatre is one of the most highly regarded in the country with a swell season of shows helping to make it one of the most profitable too.
But can you remember people petitioning for us to have a theatre?
Perhaps you are born and bred in the area and still recall the Newport Nobby train, which used to ferry locals from Newport Pagnell to Wolverton?
It might seem hard to imagine now, but for a century, the line was a bustling mode of transport, before the whistle was blown for the last time, back in 1967.
And what about the motorway opening?
There was no speed limit, no central reservation, no crash barriers and no lighting.
Top speeds of 150mph were recorded, and average speeds of 80mph were the norm!
From the innovative (albeit far from profitable) Dial A Bus scheme, that famous red balloon advert (‘Wouldn’t it be nice if all cities were like Milton Keynes?' it stated as much as asked the question) to Fishermead-based community TV station Channel 40, it’s all here.
You are taken back to the launch of the shopping centre, watch the last Aston Martin leave the production line and enjoy the New Romantic sounds of N.A Pop 2000.
It’s the people that make the place, and this collection – introduced and sown together by the Archive’s Roger Kitchen – shows plenty of them, from much-missed artist Bill Billings (below) to this week's Freedom of the Borough recipient Pete Winkelman.
The DVD catches him hosting an early event to rally support for his dream of bringing top-flight football to MK. And we know how that turned out.
Frugal times certainly didn't mean dull times, and community spirit at its best is shown in clips of post-war Wolverton.
In Newport Pagnell, wheelbarrow and pram races, a soap box derby and the River Rebels were opportunities to bring the townsfolk together, while gathering funds for the town's pensioners.
Corporal Les Payne, Pete Adams and Ron Groom were the trio making the good things happen.
“Because we had a crazy mind, we decided crazy ideas would be the thing,” Ron says, recalling Wee Willie Winkie and Christmas pudding races.
Milton Keynes Through the Lens is a truly terrific walk down our own memory lane, and well worth £12 (inc P&P) of anyone’s cash.
Purchase online through www.livingarchive.org.uk
