The Pitsea & Vange Treasure Hoard - Spotlight Stories

Community Spotlight Stories

Pat, Malcolm, Laurie, Tracey, Pauline, Barbara, Margaret, Geraldine, John, Chris & Sheila were so generous to contribute their stories and special collections. Read on to find out about what they shared!

Tracey – Stamps and Shells

“When I got married to my second husband back in ‘98, my son at the time was 7 years old, So we thought okay well if we go to Portugal and take our son with us he can maybe go and stay with his Nan and grandad [in Portugal] for a few days so we’ll have a few days on our own then he can come and spend a few days with us. His grandparents took him to the beach and these are some of the shells that they found on the beach in Portugal. He looked so happy there, in that photo, where’d he found the shells and made the sandcastles and that, we’ve just kept them, all them years after and he is now, he’s going to be 33 this year, so it’s been a while.”

“I started collecting these when I was about 9 or 10 and I just found it so fascinating that they were so different from one country to the next, it’s a stamp but the picture and the things that were on it were just so amazing. People used to collect them for me and give them to me which was really nice. The first one I collected, I noticed that was different when I was at school – we always have a pen pal in France, that was a classroom thing, I wrote to them a lot and when she would send me a letter I noticed it was so different to what we used, and it grew from there and then I ended up with a silly collection, and that was it really.

My favourite stamp is the Princess Diana one, it was actually sent to me on a letter, on a birthday card and I was so excited at the time, it’s just such a great one cause I really liked Princess Diana. As you can see most of them were used, there’s a couple that are not where people have given them to me. I like that one it’s got Bobby Moore on it when the won the World Cup. Bobby Moore was the West Ham captain at one point and I’m a big West Ham supporter.
I used to go round antique shops with my mum and some of them I found in antique shops which is why I’ve got some of the older ones and obviously they weren’t given to me, I kinda found them when I was out and about.
The one with Gandhi was given to me by my auntie. She had a pen friend in India, and it was sent on a letter from her pen friend. Andrew and Fergie (a blast from the past) – I can imagine when they would see something like this they might cringe, it’s history innit at the end of the day.”

Pat – A Collection of Collections!

“I’d gone round to my friend’s, Val, and she had a load and obviously I just said aren’t they lovely, haven’t they got unusual faces, cos they’re not normal like a teddy bear that you’d cuddle and buy. She said yeah they’re Charlie bears, and then she sold me a couple, and then when she passed away she gave me a few. I will always take them in. I’ve been collecting these about three years now, so this was a late starter collection. I’ve kept them as remembrance things of her.

This is Nellie. My son bought me this for Christmas last year, obviously it’s blue but you can get them in all different colours. There is a shop in Southend that sells nothing but Charlie bears. That one’s mohair.

The Indian ornaments I’ve been collecting for about five years. The dolls I’ve been collecting since, oh, 20 years ago. If I see a doll and I like it, and I’ve got the money, I will buy it. But it’s like, I’ve got to slow down. Before Val passed away, she gave me all her dad’s stamps. I used to collect stamps when I was a child. It’s just a hobby I suppose, but you can go OTT, so I have to
slow down a bit.

There’s another thing I collect, they’re coins. They’re from different countries. And these are all key rings from different countries. Cyprus, that’s when I went, France… yeah there’s loads.”

Malcolm – Records

“When my dad was in the army, I went to live in Wales. I went to school in Wales for about four or five years. When there’s rugby on, when there’s Wales and England, I support Wales, I suppose it’s in me.

My dad was chief man in the kitchen. He showed me a photo of a cake he made. Saturday morning there’d be a list in the kitchen, my brother and me would have to go down to Grays and get everything on that list. Bring it home. Put it in the corner. Sunday morning you was not allowed in the kitchen cause my dad done all the cooking. Served all the dinner up, and then he was finished, he’d sit in the corner with his Sunday paper, and you weren’t allowed to read that until he had read it.

If someone had a telephone in their house you would go knocking on their door, asking ‘can I borrow your phone?’ If someone had a car in the road you worked at Fords. Used to play football in the street. And everyone more or less had a red step.

We had a television and a radio cause my dad had a few bob cause he had a couple of garages, and the people next door, every Sunday used to come in a watch the palladium. And I used to sit under the table and come 9 O’clock he used to go *tap tap tap* to bed. You couldn’t ask ‘could I stay?’ you had to go.

One time, I took someone to see London and we went walking along – there’s a bloke sitting on the pavement drawing with chalk, brilliant he was. It was one of the Walker Brothers.

I bought the record in 1964, in Grays and I paid £4.50 for it and that’s the first Tom Jones record he ever made. I have other records that are very old, Shirley Bassey, Matt Monroe.
I still enjoy music, I’d rather listen to music than watch the telly.

I did boxing when I was 17 and I got to the Great Britain final in Torquay. I won the south east Essex title but I lost in the final. So my brother turned round to me and said ‘go and play football, you’re a better footballer!’ He used to be a boxer. 194 fights and only lost 19.
I was in Gray’s first football team when I was 17 and we played FA cup against a team from Wales – Llanelli. We were sitting [in the pub] once talking about football, there’s a man sitting there and he said, ‘I used to be a footballer,’ I said ‘did ya?’ and he said ‘yeah I used to be a goalkeeper for Llanelli.’ I said, ‘I played for Grays, against you. I was a 17 year old boy who played upfront with great big long hair,’ he went ‘well I’ll be blown.’

I’ve been to every part of Essex with football – you name it I’ve been!”

Chris & Sheila – Witches, Thimbles, and Fundraising for the NSPCC

Chris & Sheila are from Greensted – and have been meeting up for coffee in the same place every Wednesday morning for years. Chris has a collection of witches, and Sheila collects thimbles and bells.

This collection of photos here show a tale of their friendship, working together to fundraise for the NSPCC by selling cakes, chocolates, and knitted things over the years. Sheila had been asked to start a jumble sale at work, and moved in down the road and asked Chris to help her out. Sheila would make the cakes, her daughter would decorate them, Chris would make the chocolates – in order to make a bear or rabbit, she’d have to stand for 1.5 hours and continuously turn the mould. They used to sit either side of a sewing machine working on various projects, would take sewing machines into schools to make costumes for the Nativity, and have been crafting together for over 20 years.

Geraldine – Stories of ‘The Barge Inn’ and Adventures in Essex

Geraldine is well-known in Pitsea and Vange, as the long-standing landlady of The Barge Inn. Now, she’s a grandmother and loves to get out and socialise (although that hasn’t changed for many years!). These documents are stories she wrote down, from her own life, to share during the lockdown period – but we think the stories are just as lovely to read now. Enjoy!

Click to download and read these stories

My Lamplight Moment

My Life Behind Bars

Barbara – Pitsea Commemorative Plates and Photograph

High Road, Railway Hotel London Road, The Memorial (left – right)

The Church, The Broadway, St. Gabriel’s Chapel (left – right)

Barbara saw these commemorative plates advertised in the Echo years ago, and bought them. They provide a lovely picture of Pitsea through the years. If you look closely at the print of London Road from 1955, you’ll see the war memorial standing in its original home, across from the market square.

Laurie – Portraits and Paintings

“I was deputy director of social care in Chelmsford, we had rehabilitation centres, what was happening was large rectories and vicarage’s that victors and rectors lived in were being put to one side and clergy were living in smaller, more manageable houses. But these last rectories were very good for having a group of people who had special needs, either drug and addiction needs, and prison – needing to make their way, there’s lots of mixed needs in these rehabilitation centres and we had one in Nevendon, which is just north of Pitsea, and we had 5 others. The houses were run by a Christian married couple. Our big problem came to us when realised although we were providing for the people in the houses and a small salary for the couple who ran it, we weren’t providing any on-costs, that is, a future pension, and to meet this for a staff of about 20 would require quite a bit of money. So we went back to the Church of England in Chelmsford, and said to them ‘we must have on-costs, it’s just not fair.’ They then thought about this and said ‘we can’t do it, we haven’t got the money.’ Funnily enough poorer parishes said ‘we’ll try!’ Rich parishes said ‘no chance.’ It come as a bit of shock, so therefore social care was disbanded and the Bishop of Bradwell offered me to come to Pitsea to be the rector. It was quite a busy parish: 30,000 people, and I had 14 years here that were very enjoyable and lovely.”

“Service with a Smile is a picture of the inside of a laundrette and dry cleaners, and what I noticed whenever I went there, was that on a form would be about half a dozen people who seemed to be there all day and the reason I thought they were their for some time was that Jill the manger, was quite a vivacious woman and good company. So what I did was I asked Jill, in preparation for my painting, if she would select a dress that’d been dry cleaned, a ball gown, and dance with it. Which she did! So I could see that her dancing with this ball gown somehow exposed the silence of all the ranks of jackets and trousers and other clothes that were awaiting collection from the dry cleaning so there was a contrast from her vivaciousness and the clothes hanging up and I painted it and I was quite pleased with the result and I took it to show her but to my surprise Jill didn’t like it! I said ‘why didn’t you like it?’ And she said ‘my tummy is too big!'”

“There were three people killed at Rettendon and all came from Basildon, who were involved in the drug business and we had [the funeral] at St Gabriel’s. When I went to see the family, naturally they were distraught as anything, as a family would be – their son had been shot. I was aware that there was a ‘Mr. Big’ came to the service with henchmen and I did, in my words of address, obviously had to say people who were involved in this business were destroying lives. I didn’t go on too long about it, mainly because of the feelings of the parents whose son died. But I had to make a point I felt. We went then to Pitsea New Cemetery for the interment of the coffin, the coffin was put in the ground, respectively, and then a big burly chap – not ‘Mr. Big’ but maybe one of his side men – came up to me and looked at me, and I looked at him, and he said, ‘Nice service Padre.'”

Pauline – George Brand – a family history journey

Pauline found this intriguing book and decided to find the family of the boy to whom it used to belong – successfully!

“The funny connection is this book is about a cabinet maker and this guy finished up being a cabinet maker so it’s weird how everything fits in.

I found the book, and it was dated 1894 to a Joseph Lynn. So there’s many sites on Facebook for people you want to find, and I was on a site trying to find my ex boyfriend and I happened to put about the book and I get a text back saying that Henry Lynn lived in Kings St and was there in 2020. So I wrote to Henry Lynn and I never got a reply, I thought perhaps the letter got lost or he didn’t want to know or might’ve thought I was a hoax. Then it kept bothering me, so I thought I’ll go back on the site and I’ll see if there is anybody else further down the line than Henry. Within about an hour I got Kerry A Lynn, who lived in Hull. So I went on Facebook and there was Kerry, a young lady who went to the University of Hull, so I messaged her “Did your great grandad have a brother called Joseph and did he move up to Hull in the early 1900s, I’ve got a book belonging to Joseph, I wondered if you’d like it!” And she texted me back “Send me a copy of the book,” which I did and then we had a video chat for about an hour and a half and I learnt about Henry, I learnt about her dad and I learnt about her, and after this project I’ll be posting the book back up to Hull where it belongs because Kerry’s got Joseph’s brother’s Sunday School book, so now she’s got Joseph’s Sunday School book, but I’m glad that the book is going back home where it belongs.”

Margaret – thelwell Books

“Fobbing Farm was on the site of the St Lukes hospital in Basildon. The brick house was the old farmhouse. The roads and hospital were the fields.

My memories in the 1960s were of it being a riding school with stables, many horses and ponies, and the tack room and farmhouse.

2/6p for half-an-hour ride or 5 shillings for a full hour. My horse I used to ride was called Goblin. The smallest pony called tubby and one of the largest horses called Cherry at least 17 hands high.

These thelwell books when I bought them brought back many happy memories flooding back and I still flick through them with a smile all these years later.”

Margaret moved to Basildon in 1959, and moved to Pitsea in 1974.

John – Mid-Victorian Era Medical Tools

John is a re-enactor, and self proclaimed history lover. He’s interested in the Americas before the turn of the 20th century, and shared his collection of historical surgical tools with us. Among the collection are bullet forceps, a tonsilium, tenaculam, and an electric shock machine, alongside a number of WWI era post cards and an ornate cork cutter.