My name is Charlie Wyn-de-bank, I live in New Bradwell, which is a small village at the north of Milton Keynes. I have lived there now for about 20 years in the old railway houses in Spencer St with my wife Shelly, and my son Spike. I lived in a similar house in Bletchley for many years as a boy, the houses were built around 1850-60 and were probably built by the same builders, as the ones in New Bradwell. However, I have not always lived in this area. I was born in Lancashire, in a place called Coupe, near Waterfoot. The house was a one up one down semi with a smallholding next door, and that was it. I was born at five o'clock just as the whistle went off for the end of shift in the mills in the valley. Earlier in the day my mum, Dorothy was coal picking on the hillside. My dad Bill, worked on the railway as a crossing keeper and as such was able to move within the rail network as jobs came up. So when a job came up in Sharnbrook my dad took it, where we stayed for a couple of years. I remember the massive piles of coal, whether these were for the steam engines or what I don’t know. There was a man who looked after the coal sidings and I can still remember him giving me and my elder sister, Jill, wheelbarrow rides around the sidings. My dad was then offered the job of signalman in the Bletchley area, so we moved again, into the railway houses just by Bletchley station, called Railway Terrace. They were close to the railway, and I still recall the express's at night with the fireboxes glowing red, and the way the houses would shake. We stayed there for several years, and I have lots and lots of memories of the area and of this time. This was a time when as a kid you could wander for miles and miles, there was always something to do, with two big lakes nearby ( the New Found Out and the Blue Lagoon ) and streams going to and fro, you could lose yourself for hours. We also had the open air swimming pool by the central gardens, with tennis courts and putting greens, plus the market and cattle market. Also, of course there was what we called the flea pit, the old cinema, we would go and look at the photos in the displays outside to see what thrills were to be showing next week. We used to go there every saturday morning, and every saturday the manager would have to stop the film and tell us all to calm down. The old cinema has been knocked down now, its funny, its not until something's gone that you realise how much you miss it. I remember when they opened Queensway the ribbon to be cut was just to the left of The Terrace. The Mayor, the local paper photographers and all the dignitaries were there waiting for the ribbon to be cut and a grand parade throughout Queensway. That was until me and Steven Dyre from next door rode out of our street and down the new road on our bikes, much to the amusement of all attending...we even got our photo in the Bletchley gazette! It was about this time I recall looking in the Bletchley Gazette, (I was about ten years old) and seeing a small map of east anglia with some towns highlighted with a red star, the star denoted that this area was to become a city, and one of them was right on Bletchley I thought this was brilliant. I can remember thinking this would be great, we would have all those big buildings, such as those in London, big old grey looking libraries, Greek town halls with massive columns etc, but it didn’t really turn out like I expected. I still love Milton Keynes, and have come to accept all the concrete and glass. Railway Terrace consisted of 20 houses, all the same, apart from the one at the end, this was bigger, more spacious and had more bedrooms (four instead of two). The houses we live in are the same, small two bedroomed houses, being twenty in all, in two terraces. On each end there are four bigger houses, making it 24 in all, they have four bedrooms and have three storeys, and were for the foremen and their families. Can you imagine living next door to your foreman? Great if he was ok, but if not, you couldn’t pull a 'sickey' and not be ill, in case he found out. I never thought we would ever move out of Railway Terrace, but things were afoot, way beyond our control. The powers that be wanted to sell off the land we lived on to build, so we all had to be moved out, and we ended up at Fenny Stratford and Pinewood Drive. The house itself wasn't too bad, probably built in the fifties with a big garden, which was great for my dad, he was a brilliant gardener. He also had 10 pole of allottments by the canal, and we always had fresh veg with no additives or chemicals, something which I totally took for granted at the time. If there wasn’t too much in the pantry my mum could make a meal out of nothing or so it seemed to me. The great thing for me was the area, it was situated right by the canal, with Manor Fields, the river, and loads of countryside. Just right for my motorbikes. I was now a teenager, and required slightly more demanding fun. There were five or six other lads all my age, one of which became a really good mate. So with these newly found pals, this took care of the fun side of things, and we got up to all sorts of mischief, usually down the river or canal, or wherever. For some reason or other my folks decided this house wasn't right for us, so we did an exchange with a family from Manor Road, still in Fenny Statford. This was a very important place for me, because it was here I turned from a lad into a young man, and again I have some really good memories from this time and place. I was really into motorbikes now, and I would often be seen wheeling these down to what we called the Manor, this was the wasteland by Manor Fields and it was perfect for motorbikes. I was now working on the railway, which sort of becomes a way of life, because of the odd hours, and especially the lads you work with. I worked as what they called a second man, which used to be a fireman in the days of steam, infact, all the drivers then were old steam men, and had lots of stories, of "the old days". You were always at work, but it seemed like you had a lot of time off, this was because I was up and about when I should have been sleeping. You could work all hours on the railway, we had a rota of 11 weeks, you started at week 1 and worked through to 11 and started at week 1 again. You would have two days off, Sunday which you could ask to work on, and a day in lieu, which we called Spiv Day, which you could end up having any time. Sometimes it worked out that you had a spiv day on the Saturday, not working Sunday, and spiv day Monday, so you had a long weekend, this also coincided with working nights so it seemed you had longer, (staying up when you should have been sleeping) So that was the railway. It was from Manor Rd where I finally left home. After living in various shared flats in Bletchley, I moved to Newbury, then Burghfield common near Reading. I lived there with a girl, which was fine for a while. But all was not well, and I found myself needing somewhere else to live. From here I could have gone anywhere, to North Yorkshire for instance, because I was doing loads of caving at the time with Newbury and district cave and pothole club,but I found myself wanting to move back to Milton Keynes, there was no chance of getting a council house or flat, as a single man the waiting list was years, so it was private renting or nothing. At this time my sister was living in Spencer St, which I had visited several times. Spencer st is a housing co-op, established in 1973, and was a fantastic place. I asked my sister what the criteria was for getting a house, and it was obvious this wasn’t going to be a quick fix, I couldn’t stay with her because she had two kids and her partner, but she did say there was an opportunity to lodge with a neighbour, this was great, so after a bit of wrangling I lodged with darty, and it was brilliant. Although it was great sharing a house what I really wanted was a place of my own, so as houses became available I applied for them, I had several disappointments but eventually one had my name on it, and I have lived there ever since, it was here I met Shelly who was to become my wife, eventually she got me into trouble and we had a child, my son spike, we have moved around within the street and we now live in one of the three story houses and we love it. So that’s really it, I had ended up in spencer st.