Stevenage at 75 - a personal reflection - Stevenage 75th anniversary magazine | biz4Biz - Magazine - Page 8
Stevenage at 75 - a personal reflection
Sharon Taylor
Stevenage At 75
A Personal Reflection
As Stevenage celebrates its 75th birthday
it is a perfect time to look back over our
history and reflect on everything that has
been achieved, the challenges we have
faced and the lessons we have learned
from them as well as looking forward to
what is emerging as a bright and positive
future for our town.
It was with great expectations, and some
trepidation, that my parents came here
at the start of the new town journey in
1954, they rightly thought of themselves
as ‘pioneers’. They were newly married
and having completed his national service
with the Royal Air Force, my dad was
offered a job with English Electric which
was then based in Luton but shortly to
move to Stevenage. They were offered a
three-bedroom house in our town along
with his job and were excited to be part
of a new town as they started their new
future. They quickly got involved in
amateur dramatics groups and dad joined
the Civil Defence, mum the St John’s
Ambulance Brigade. We lived in Roebuck
where they formed close and lasting
friendships with our neighbours as most
of them were far away from their families.
As children, my sisters and I, with the
children of our neighbours, enjoyed the
green spaces around our homes, the
woods and the fields. We were a new
generation and the first to grow up in this
new vision of a post-war new town. I still
meet up with friends from those days
now, friendships that have lasted over 60
years.
The vision for the new town came
from the post-war Labour government,
driven by the need to re-home many of
those whose homes had been destroyed
between 1939-1945. Based on the earlier
garden city principles, they decided to
create the town on the principle of 6
autonomous neighbourhoods, each with
8
their own green spaces and facilities
(health, schools, shops, community
centres etc) to support those living in the
new homes. There was also to be a town
centre for shopping needs not available
in local centres and the workplaces
(industrial area) would be separated from
the housing neighbourhoods. These
excellent planning principles hold good
w w w. b i z 4 b i z . o r g
right up to the present day and we receive
lots of visitors who take great interest in
how this has worked over the years.
It was clear from the earliest days of the
new town when I was growing up that
the community here was developing as
a strong and very welcome foundation
stone of Stevenage. So many clubs,
groups, sports activities and social events