This song was created in September 1976 during workshops given by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger - who not only performed in Stantonbury Theatre that weekend, but also acted as song-writing consultants to Stantonbury Campus Drama Group: ‘They taught us how to write songs and music in the style of the Radio Ballads,’ said Roy Nevitt, Director of Drama (1974-2000) and co-founder of Living Archive. When workshop participants finally performed their creations, it was Paul Clark’s composition – It’s Dirty It’s Dusty – that uniquely prompted rare high praise from MacColl, a challenging man to please.
We’d got a certain pride at Wolverton, we’d got a certain tradition, that we were the quality works. And even today it’s known as THE Works. If there was a difficult job to tackle or a one-off, they’d say, Send it to Wolverton Works, Wolverton can do it. And if Wolverton can’t do it, it can’t be done.
The song became part of two special projects: The Works (1994) a Radio Ballad co-produced by BBC Three Counties Radio and Living Archive with first-hand accounts of life in Wolverton Works and the changes experienced over 50 years; and The Fabric of Milton Keynes (1994), a one-off event in CMK’s Christ the Cornerstone Church recorded live on BBC radio – where people from all over the new city came with their artworks, dance, music and song.