A village called Milton Keynes

Distinguished blogger Paul Linford believes that "until the 1970s Milton Keynes did not actually exist as a place".

Not so.

I refer the Hon. Gentleman to a posting on my anthology blog Serendib. In his Buckinghamshire Footpaths, published in 1949, J.H.B. Peel wrote:

In Broughton you turn rightward along a lane into Milton Keynes, as fine a small English village as you are likely to encounter in these parts, or, for that matter, in any other parts.

Milton Keynes is a homely place. Fields encroach upon the dusty by-lane, and brim over the scattered cottages. There is nothing here of the conventional beauty spot, for indeed no one seems to have heard of the place, save the handful of its inhabitants; and these think so well of it that they rarely leave it, and then only upon compulsion like Falstaff.

I have known and loved Milton Keynes since I was a boy, but at no time in my legion pilgrimages thither have I met a stranger.