Skip to main content

Ideas for an Exciting Basildon Museum Inspired by Vin Harrop

Vin Harrop has been the biggest inspiration in my local history author career (after this Arnold Wesker with his community play Beorhtel's Hill and Frances Clamp and also the Basildon Borough Heritage team).  He welcomed me to The Basildon Heritage Project Team with his usual enthusiasm and warmth and although I was sort of going along with his campaign at the time he planted a seed that has stayed in my mind.  This seed is the idea of a museum for Basildon.

Take a look at this newspaper article about Vin and The Arts Centre and then you might appreciate why this man is such an inspiration: -
https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/16891794.the-rise-and-fall-of-basildons-groundbreaking-arts-centre/

My ideal museum would appeal to all ages and would be highly immersive, it would include virtual reality experiences where you could walk down Laindon High Road in the 1940's or 1950's, go into Parkinson' s for example and ask for something, it would be much like the fork handles scene in the Two Ronnies.  You'd go and visit the plotlanders where they might be all gathered for a sing song "don't fence me in!"
You might go up to Langdon Hills as part of 'Basildon in the Second World War' experience and visit the army camp and the prisoner of war camp then go to The Barge Pub in Vange and have a pint with Elizabeth Goodson serving you, you might be surrounded by local soldiers from Vange army camp and Doughy Saunders might be leaning on the bar.  Maybe you'd want to go back to the Locarno Ballroom when Mecca Dancing owned it or the Arts Centre.

I'd also have escape rooms, there could be 'Escape from the POW camp' or escape from your house and get to shelter before the Blitz as the German pilots are coming back from London following the Thames and will be targeting Pitsea.

My ideal location for this marvellous museum about Basildon would be in the Eastgate Shopping Centre as it has a very good footfall and it has its place in history as the biggest indoor shopping centre in Europe in the 1980's.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rose Cleary - How to be a French Girl

  I interviewed Rose Cleary on 30th March 2021 in what was still the lockdown periods. I chose to do podcasts at the time to widen my narrowing world. Rose Cleary has her debut novel out now called  How to be a French Girl . Rose Cleary, born 1990, is an author and writer from Essex. Her writing has been previously published in the New Socialist, The Southend's Twilight Worlds, Hyperallergic and TOMA. She has exhibited her art internationally at galleries including Nahmad Projects and The Vaults in London, and Backlit Gallery in Nottingham. How to be a French Girl is her debut novel. You can follow her on Instagram and visit her website  http://rosecleary.com/   3:AM Magazine has printed an extract from the book here . Read a post by Rose on the London Review Book Shop where she talks about the process of writing the book   here . https://www.lisajhorner.com/

Sylvia Kent - A Prestigious Lady

Sylvia in a bookshop with her books 19/12/19 Sylvia broadcasting on Phoenix FM in 2017 IF you want something done ask a busy person!  This certainly applies to Sylvia Kent, a freelance writer and author with 12 published books, including her latest one ‘Brentwood in 50 Buildings’.  She has also contributed to seven anthologies and has had more than 4,000 features published, many as part of her columns for Essex Life, and other magazines and newspapers, specialising in history, gardening, winemaking and folklore. As well as being vice-president for the Brentwood Writers' Circle she is a founding member of the Billericay Reading Group and has a monthly Book Club spot on Michelle Ward's 'Eat My Brunch' at Phoenix FM. Sylvia is patron for the Essex Book Festival and a Trustee of the John Baron Fun Walk which raises money for local charities. Sylvia is on of five sisters and was brought up in Dagenham.  When she left school it was assumed that she would go...

You are invited to....

 The talk will actually start at 8pm, you can pay at the door so be sure to get there a bit earlier. https://www.lisajhorner.com/