Dave's Diary

  An idea for a community project in 2020 In the very early 1970’s Britain lost many tress due to Dutch Elm Disease. The government came up with PLANT A TREE IN ’73 encouraging people to plant trees in their gardens. This catchy phrase and the thinking behind it were such a success it was followed by PLANT SOME MORE IN ’74. Although the government announced in January 1969 an area of land was to be designated for the building of a new city these were the early days in the actual construction of Milton Keynes and the government scheme was not part of the development. However, within the planning this was to be MILTON KEYNES THE CITY OF TREES. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s Milton Keynes Development Corporation gave every home a voucher for a tree to plant in the garden.   MILTON KEYNES THE CITY OF TREES. Within this there was an edict that NO BUILDING SHALL BE TALLER THAN THE SURROUNDING TREES. Sadly Milton Keynes Council has trashed that and   is currently amplifying within

THERE ARE MORE LEGENDS PER SQUARE MILE IN MILTON KEYNES THAN CAN BE FOUND IN ANY OTHER TOWN< CITY OR VILLAGE IN BRITAIN   ·        Signs and roundabouts – Someone once joked that Milton Keynes was a place of signs and wonders. There were signs pointing everywhere and everyone wondered where they were actually pointing to.   Built on a unique grid road system the H roads are those which run Horizontally across the city, broadly West to East. The V roads run North and South up and down the plan. The H roads are all WAYS – Portway while the V roads are Streets – Fulmer Street and so on. Where each V road intersected with an H road there was a roundabout, at one time with a smile it was said that there were three hundred and sixty-five roundabouts, one for each day of the year. I think, somehow, that is just a legend with the tiniest possible grain of truth. Approaching a roundabout the first set of signs told the driver the local/immediate directions while the second set gave mor

  LOCATIONS, LEGENDS, ICONS, HISTORY AND HERITAGE As I write this part of my presentation I will have to be careful and try to keep it   short !   I could actually write a book. I HAVE written a book, two books: Not The Concrete Cows published in 1991 and Milton Dreams The City That Never Was published   in 2020. Of all locations in Britain I think I would be right in saying nowhere can beat Milton Keynes for such a large number and wide diversion of legends. A legend ?   It could be true, it may be true, it doesn’t have to be true but it is the grain of truth within a legend and what it contributes to a legend that counts. Fenny Poppers – Saint Martins Church in Fenny Stratford Milton Keynes is the only church in the country with a firearms licence ! It needs this to store the gunpowder for the annual firing of Fenny Poppers. I am deeply honoured to have been invited to fire the poppers not once but twice. The poopers are fired on Leon Recreation Ground, a park given to the town