Change has been a way of life for the citizens of Milton Keynes for more than thirty years. Its original residents have watched their once familiar rural landscape systematically re-designed. New settlers have radically changed their lives, leaving their roots and family ties behind as they moved to the brand new housing estates in the fledgling city.
How do you help the long-time residents retain their pride in their lives and histories that seem to be lost in the name of progress? How do you give the new arrivals the sense of coming into a place which has a past as well as a future?
These were the challenges which led to the establishment of the Living Archive project in 1984 and this New Communities catalogue is comprised of three of the archive's collections documenting the cause and effect of change on local residents:
All Change
A collection relating to the coming of the railways and the creation of the North Buckinghamshire railway towns of Wolverton and New Bradwell during the years 1832-1865. The material was originally sourced in 1976 to produce a musical documentary retelling the story of the impact of industry on the small rural population through historical documents and reminiscences.
Bigger Brighter Better
The new Town and Country Planning Act (1944) gave local authorities greater powers to acquire land needed for development. By 1966, Bletchley had grown from a small, quiet country town to a bustling new home for thousands of newcomers and was destined to become part of the future new city of Milton Keynes. The 'bigger' Bletchley of 1966 would enjoy, with the rest of the nation, some 'brighter' prospects, too: after the long blackout of the War.
The People's History of Milton Keynes
The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of innovation and growth in Britain, and nothing better symbolised this than the need for, and planning of, the biggest and most ambitious of the New Towns. Population growth in the South East demanded more and better housing. New Town legislation and forward planning determined that this last New Town would find itself in the middle of an established farming community, and a pleasant village within this community would provide the name for the city of the future: Milton Keynes.
The pioneers of this work were Roy Nevitt and Roger Kitchen. From 1974, Roy, Director of Drama at Stantonbury Campus, devised and directed large-scale community documentary plays. Roger, a community worker with Milton Keynes Development Corporation, was collecting oral reminiscences of people whose lives were being changed by the influx of newcomers. Their partnership led to the foundation of the Living Archive Project (1984) an organisation helping people celebrate and share their lives and place, to create a strong sense of community and pride.
Living Archive has produced eleven musical documentary plays, twenty books of local reminiscence, photographic and other exhibitions, CD-ROMs, radio and video documentaries, sculpture and textile projects. Local people of all ages and backgrounds are actively involved in all stages of this work.
This wealth of multi-media archive material collected and retained for over twenty five years forms the basis for the collections that Living Archive are introducing to a wider audience through this Heritage Lottery Funded catalogue with the support of Milton Keynes Community Foundation and Milton Keynes Council.