In 1989 the dramatic history of 'New Town' Basildon was portrayed in Arnold Wesker's play 'Beorhtel's Hill' at the Towngate Theatre to celebrate it's 40th anniversary. He went beyond this actually and the pioneering plotlanders were portrayed by a group of very effective amateur actors. The community play incorporated locals who had acted before or wanted to try their hand at it and the Thalian Theatre Group. Somebody who was very involved in the music scene of the 1980's was Rob Marlow and he did a great job of portraying the narrator of the play. I have a close at hand experience of this as I was in the play, I played several small parts and was in the chorus. This occupies a few pages of this book but it is so much more than that.
I was fortunate enough to meet Tim Williams who was the first photographer of Depeche Mode.
I learnt a great deal doing this book such as the fact that Joan Sims was born at Laindon Station and that we had an explosives factory on the site of Wat Tyler Country Park.
In my role as researcher for the Basildon Heritage Trail I visited a site where Basildon Hall (Barstable Hall) once stood, you could see the dip in the land where the moat once was. This area is revealed in the book.
Did you know that before F. W. Woolworths was established at No.23 Town Square in 1961 that it sold its wares from a mobile van, usually parked in the Market Square? Or that there was an army camp at Langdon Hills and a prisoner of war camp was quite close by?
Find out so much more in this book full of pictures and bite-size chunks of information that makes it a very easy read. With an infographic timeline on page 5 the sections follow by area working from west to east, namely: - Dunton, Laindon, Langdon Hills, Basildon then Vange, Pitsea and finally Bowers Gifford.
"From the Stone Age to the exciting era of post-war architectural experimentation, Basildon is a town brimming with exciting historical gems just waiting to be explored. Beorhtel's Dun, as Basildon was originally called, got its name from a Saxon man who owned the hilly country to the north of Holy Cross church. While agriculture was the town's main industry for many centuries, the invention of the the railway and two world wars soon changed all that.
This fascinating selection of photographs traces some of the many ways in which Basildon has changed and developed over the last century." (Described by Amberley Publishing).
The book is available at amazon.co.uk and Amberley Publishing's own site as well as a host of other book selling sites and you can buy it at the WHSmith store in Basildon.
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