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I was bought up in Council estate, Tithe Farm in Houghton
Regis, I moved to Luton in the 1970s, and then moved back to
Houghton Regis a few times, but always came back to Luton. It
was good fun, in all fairness. I mean it was the community spirit
that kept me returning. The community spirit, which we find
hard now. We all came down from London, people looked out
for each other, if someone didn’t have money.
They didn’t have food, there was someone who would make
food for them, that was how it was back then. Employment
was not much of an issue back then as everyone was more or
less in a job. It always appeared as if people had money. Young
people had money, there were apprenticeships with big, good
companies, young people were getting skilled up, it was a good
area to be in. Back then the lifestyle however was tough around
the council estates which were rough, there was still poverty
around there. The lifestyle in the 1960’s and 80’s was good fun
It was good employment and with young people having a lot of places to go to. Football was
good money. Lifestyle was tough, a common sport played everywhere in Luton.
council estates were rough, there There have been a lot of changes in Luton, mainly with the
were still poverty. communities in Luton. I think that people are not as welcoming
as they used to be, they no longer open their doors and talk to
each other, like they used to back then.

My first impression of Bury Park was in the 1966, when we came down to see Luton Town play against Bristol Rangers, I
remember the game we lost 2-0. I was a Fulham fan, and my dad was a Queens Park Rangers fan. We came down from
London and it wasn’t easy to get back to London back then.

I just remember the football club as being the highlight point of Bury Park. I recall a historical moment which I would like
to share; in Bury Park, on Crawley Road, there used to be this tremendous record shop, the shop was called FL Moors,
it went onto the High Street, but around the back it was just a little record shop, you could get any record you wanted
there. It was very unique because the shop sold records which you wouldn’t normally be able to purchase in any other
shop in the 60’s, these were American imports! I enjoyed visiting FL Moors before going to the match on a Saturday. On
a Friday night we frequented a small café around the same area where we used to buy stake and chips, the café opened
until late, so I recall returning home at 2am! Those are some of my fondest memories of Luton Crawley Road.

Unfortunately, on match days there was always a lot of hooliganism, I wouldn’t call it racism though as that started
around 1970’s. There were a lot of Luton fans who would meet the away fans at the station, Westside Centre was
around then. There used to be a lot of altercations between the fans at that time. In the 1960s, Bury Park was not really
an Asian community, there were some Asian’s and Irish, but it wasn’t an Asian community then. So the dynamics have
changed immensely.
Politically, coming from a working-class background, a working-class family, you had to fight for everything. Probably
what lot of people have to do now. My mother was a trade unionist, she was shopping steward. When we came
to London, the buses wouldn’t come all the way to Tithe Farm because they thought we were all criminals, so my
mother fought for a bus service, and she got a bus service to run all the way to Tithe Farm. Politically, there’s a massive
difference, I don’t think people these days get together and say, ‘right we need to fight, and we need to make sure
that we are heard.’ That doesn’t seem to happen now and that’s a what separates people. I think that’s a ‘separation’
purposely created by the government, in order to control people.
The government is aware from their experiences of the 1970’s that when people are together, they are stronger, so they
tried to break the trade union movement. The trade union movement is coming back again. So politically there has been
a massive shift. The trade union leaders are more articulate now than they were before. I love Bury Park; I think it’s got
lot to offer. The restaurants are great, the clothes, I remember driving down there one evening and just seeing all the
lights on in the shops on a dark night. It just looks fantastic. The community we have in Bury Park now is the community
we used to have in the 1960s. I think the community in Bury Park, is one where they look after each other, it’s the same
as what we had on the council estates in the 60s and 70s.
In the early 70s, I would have been around 14 then there was not a big Asian community back then. I had friends on the
estate I grew up in, my friends then would say ‘let’s go Paki bashing.’ I didn’t do it, I didn’t think it was right. I just thought
it was a horrible thing to say. But that used to happen, go off the estate go down to Bury Park to do what they used to
call ‘Paki bashing.’ If you go back to the 80s, where Luton played Millwall, there were the big national front supporters
coming in, who will come pretending to be Millwall supporters, but they would come to take Bury Park apart that

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