LOCAL HISTORY
The Almshouses at Great Linford Pic: The Parks Trust
The faces who occupied the places we now call home M The lives of the colourful characters who called this part of North Bucks home during the 19th and 20th centuries are being remembered and their stories told in a series of new books. Sammy Jones delved into the pages written by historian John Taylor. 22
ilton Keynes might not officially be a city in name yet, but it has all of the associated success, concrete and bustle of one. Big business brands flock here, new housing estates seem to appear almost overnight, and even our once clean skyline is being encroached upon. Looking around us today, it can be hard to imagine a time when life here was far more rural, and even harder to imagine the lives of those who lived, loved and worked in our villages and towns. John Taylor has spent 50 years writing about our local history, and his new Village Stories series is a wonderfully warm and thorough way to retrace local steps of our predecessors.
“With the city now well established, many present day residents seem to think it perhaps just wafted down from the heavens ready built and aren't aware that previously the area was predominantly agricultural, with village communities and a way of life which existed for centuries,” John said. “As one who remembers 'how it used to be,' my intent is just to tell something of the people and places of those past communities, before they, and their rural way of life, are forgotten.” And his writing tells stories of day-to-day life, tales of wealth and success, and others of tragedy. John's books explore the marvellously mundane (details of fetes and galas, and minor brushes with the law) through to the
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