Time traveller who dwells in the playground of words and pictures.
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Geraldine Evans and Angela Bailey - The Barge - S1 E15 (podcast)
I was fortunate enough to find Geraldine Evans on social media when I was researching for my book, Lost Basildon. What a lady! With some really amazing stories about The Barge and Vange's history. Her family had ran the pub which has also been known as The Old Barge Inn for seventy years! It all started when her paternal aunt wanted to escape London to the then countryside of Vange and on the 20th May 1937 she paid £2,643.06 for the lease of the pub and its surrounding land. I contributed four pages to The Barge and also a couple of pages to Geraldine as the Pitsea and Vange Carnival Queen of 1967 in the entertainment section. She also let me have a copy of a picture of Doughy Saunders on horseback heading up the Vange Carnival procession dressed as John Bull.
After meeting Geraldine with her treasure of stories I knew that there was more that could be done so as I was on a writing course for The Writers Bureau and I needed to write an article I just knew that people would be keen to read more of the story of The Barge when it was ran by her family. You can actually read the article here. The article had pride of place in the EssexLife magazine.
When Geraldine's husband died suddenly she told me that her daughter and son stepped up as licensees as Geraldine couldn't do this as she was also a Justice of the Peace. Angela gave up her job and joined her mother to run the pub. I hope you enjoy listening to the podcast where I talk to the pair of them and I also have them on video too.
I spoke to Angela about her Lockdown book and her new book that is going to be published soon, you can find out more about these here.
The Old Barge Inn and Saunders & Son, the bakers close by.
Geraldine with bar staff Sharon Hayward, Jackie Stock-Baker, Shirley Ansell, Betty Barker, Margaret Price, Sharmon Szewczyk and Barbara Smith
A newspaper cutting of celebrations after the war in 1945 at the pub organised by Geraldine's dad, Ted.
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 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...
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