Milton Keynes

[Bedpan]

Why does Milton Keynes refer to itself as a City when clearly it isn't? It even says "City" on the road signs as you reach it!

I don't often go to Milton Keynes itself (as opposed to the stadium), but I do quite enjoy it when I do although probably only for the novelty value.

Leicester I really like - my daughter had 8 years at the university and lived in Clarendon Park which I thought was a really nice cosmopolitan locality, reminded me a bit of some of the places I used to go to sometimes in SW London but not so busy or crowded, and we loved Barceloneta, one of my favourite restaurants. The Highcross shopping centre is second to none and there is a nice atmosphere in the restaurant area alongside it. But what Central Leicester lacks is sights for visitors to sightsee. There are some roman ruins near the Holiday Inn and the Turkey Cafe is a great looking building, but I can't think of much else in the centre off hand other than perhaps the market.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why does Milton Keynes refer to itself as a City when clearly it isn't? It even says "City" on the road signs as you reach it!

It's a linguistic issue.

MK is a "New City" (imagine that as being a trademark or brand), but it is not a "city".

A "New City" is something created by the Commission for the New Towns which was intended to signify not city status (though I think it's still hoped it will achieve that in the end) but rather that it was a much larger version of the New Town concept. I suppose this could have been avoided by calling it something different like a "New Metropolis" or something, but that sounds a bit odd.

If we were German, it would be a "Neugrossstadt", and I think it would be very clear to everyone that that was a totally different word from "Grossstadt" despite it having the same root.

So I don't get why anyone really gets hung up on it.

That said, as a quirk of how MK is made up of a few towns, and partly because of this whole "new city" thing, local parlance is to go "up the city" if you're going to CMK, and "city please" on the bus, whereas a Bletchleyite (!) might say "into town" referring to Bletchley's rather grim town centre. Which actually contrasts with most actual cities, where, for instance, a Scouser living in the suburbs would refer to the city centre as "town" and would tend to specify the name if going to their local "town" centre, e.g. we'd say "going to town" for Liverpool city centre but "into Ormskirk" or "to Maghull" (quite why you go into one but to the other I have no idea) for either of those more local places.

 

[eMeS]

Back in 1969 I was working in Borehamwood, and living in Harpenden and very keen to get myself one of these new-fangled interchangeable lens SLR cameras. Discount shopping then was very rare, but Camera Hayes of 2 Brooklands Road, Bletchley was one offering me a Minolta SRT101 at a just affordable price. So I made the journey into unknown territory for me, just to buy a camera. A few years later, Jessops of Leicester (before they were in every town centre) held one of their very rare sales, so four of us drove from Borehamwood and joined the long queue. By the time we were served, all the best items had gone, and now I can't remember what I bought as my "trophy"! It certainly wasn't a camera. Later, I shopped at both of Jacobs Leicester stores before they closed.

In early 1980 my employers announced that we were moving to a new site in Milton Keynes. A selected group of us were shown our new accommodation - Portakabin style buildings - on the edge of Linford Wood, and gosh, was it a cold February morning. I remember it feeling colder inside the unheated buildings than in the open.
The company in line with IR procedures, offered us some help in moving, and our search for a new home began. Not easy for us a family, as my wife wanted an older property full of character, and these had largely been bought, and I didn't want to commute from Yardley Gobion where we found the nearest contender.

Two years later, with snow on the ground, I moved to my present home and have been here ever since. The Portakabin style buildings were replaced, and the substantial building where our work continued remains in Linford Wood, although under new ownership, and being modified yet again.

For the last 4 decades I've enjoyed living in the "New City of Milton Keynes" , even though it isn't a city... but it does have lots of greenery, and nature reserves - and the air pollution from the brickworks to the west of Bletchley ceased many years ago.