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Olney
Olney maps
Historic maps of Olney and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Olney maps
Olney area books
Displaying 1 of 7 books about Olney and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Olney
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Buckinghamshire memories
Memories of Village Haircuts.
Just before the 1960’s transformed our innocent lives, all us village boys had a limited choice of tonsorial art; indeed you could count the number of available haircuts (styles wasn’t a word used for men or boys) on the fingers of one hand… Short Back & Sides, Square Neck, Feather Neck & Crew Cut.
Short Back & Sides; the standard cut for 90\% of the male population and had been forever as far as I could tell. It left only the crown hair… to be individually determined e.g. long - medium – short. And for the MEN Brylcream was a must to spruce them up.
Square Neck and Feather Neck where pretty much the same thing, with the finish at the nape of the neck being either squared across with the clippers or feathered. The Square Neck was a Teddy Boy cut… Elvis was the role model, so the top was usually long and quiffed. With both these styles the biggest difference from the SB&S was the... Read more
When I Was A Lad
The lad leaning on the wall was John Cook, whose father was a policeman in NP, the guy to the left in the dark suite is me and the lad sitting on the pillar (to the right) was David Ashworth son of Major Ashworth who lived in Silver Street.
Loved Going to The River
My grandmother had a shop in Newport Pagnall and my mother was born there, she is now 90 years old. We have fond memories of Lathbury where we used to have our summer holidays there, playing and swimming and fishing in the river. A great site, thank-you. Kind regards, Viv
Before Milton Keynes
I now live in Australia but as a youngster I grew up just outside Newport Pagnell at Tongwell Farm. Whilst at school in Newport and whilst they were building the M1 motorway we used to get collected in a mini bus and driven too and from school each day. I well remember the announcement that they were going to build a new city called Milton Keynes and the farm would be part of that new city. Despite significant efforts I find getting pre-Milton Keynes photographs of the area where the farm was impossible and like many other I have regrets that I did not take the care to look after the past for the next generations.
Opera
A friend of mine (Len) said we should go to Hanslope one weekend to meet a girl he used to go out with when she lived in Kensington in London. We drove up to Hanslope one Saturday morning to see her. Her family lived in a massive white house in Hanslope (her name was Gelda). When we walked in I was amazed to meet her father and realised that he was Charles Craig, the world-famous opera singer! Over the following years, I would often call in for a cup of tea with them when I was on my way to the midlands and the north.
The Great Linford
I had heard of The Great Linford and can trace genealogy back to the one subjects that lived on the Great Linford although it is not named after any of my ancestors.
In 2000, I had the opportunity to vist London and rented a car and drove out to Milton Keynes and the Great Linford just to see what it was all about. It is amazing that the buildings have endured as long as they have. I found it peacful and serene even though the Great Linford Manor is now a recording studio. I hope to return one day and spend more than a couple of hours and see more of the area.
Where The Name Heelands Orginated
I was told a tale by Mrs Lester of Bradwell Village that one day the lord of Bradwell Manor had visitors from Scotland staying, and early one morning as they looked out of their bedroom window and looked across the fields towards Heelands they remarked how much the scenery reminded them of home and the Hi'glands, and this is how the name became.
