Archive

  • Soccer: Parkin just the ticket for U's?

    Wimbledon goalkeeper Brian Parkin was ready to stake a claim for a new career with Colchester United on Monday. But the Selhurst Park deputy to the Dons Scottish international Neil Sullivan could be put under pressure from former Spurs keeper Simon Brown

  • Running: 10k run goes West

    Peter West claimed a unique double in the Colchester 10km road race titleon Sunday. The Colchester Harriers ace recorded a time of 34 minutes 22 seconds to come in ahead of Colin Pitts (34.37) and Tom Payn (35.41) in the men's event. And it was his win

  • Revamp unveiled at Runwell hospital

    Images of stark, grey institutionalised drabness have been swept away at Runwell Hospital - thanks to the decorator's paintbrush and some inspired imagination. The first phase of a £1.7 million project to transform living conditions for seriously-ill

  • Marks Tey: Benjamin pipped to post with invention

    An invention which could have netted a fortune for a ten-year-old schoolboy is to appear on the market because someone else beat him to it. Benjamin Fitch dreamed of the future of dental hygiene in the form of a toothbrush with a built-in supply of toothpaste

  • Firm's £550m deal

    An Essex-based company has been acquired in a £550 million deal. From today Cable and Wireless, in Duke Street, Chelmsford, will join Bermuda-based Global Crossing, owner and operator of the first independent fibre optic network. Cable and Wireless Global

  • Essex teachers condemn research spending

    Cash-strapped schools have condemned plans to spend more than £250,000 on academic research instead of saving teachers' jobs. Education chiefs want to spend £262,000 funding a three-year-long political study at Essex University - enough to pay ten top-level

  • Braintree: The man who helps dreams come true

    Braintree Foyer welcomes a new face this week - Tyneside-born Terry Armstrong. Terry, 53, is new training co-ordinator at the housing and training scheme for young people aged between 16 and 25. After 22 years in the RAF as an aircraft technician, Terry

  • Basildon cinema could become one of UK's biggest venues

    Basildon looks set to house one of the biggest cinemas in the country, if ambitious plans are given the go-ahead. UCI bosses have applied to expand their Festival Leisure Park multiplex to 20 screens, making it the third largest complex in the UK. Booming

  • Canvey care home closure shock

    Pensioners at a Canvey care home are facing an uncertain future after learning it will close at the end of the month. The 16 residents of Beveland Lodge, aged between 76 and 98, will be forced to find another home when it shuts its doors on July 30. The

  • Southend: £1.9m will fraud

    Devious Annette Russill disguised herself as an elderly Southend spinster in a plot to fiddle a £1.8 million will, a court heard. She put on a wig and clothes to pretend she was 87-year-old Annie Kay - who later died in March 1997 - so she could rewrite

  • Clacton: Dad's tribute to Michelle

    A grieving father yesterday paid tribute to his daughter who died tragically of a brain haemorrhage, aged just 18. David Southern said daughter Michelle, of West Avenue, Clacton, had just started her first full-time job. And she was planning to surprise

  • Canvey: Top dog

    Rodney the dachshund has just been voted top dog at a show in Scotland, much to the delight of his owners. The three-year-old smooth standard daschund - whose show name is Top Thorne Roderick Joyce For Seatris - is the pride and joy of Bob and Anita McCarthy

  • Basildon: Young Houdini shocks mum

    A mother was horrified when her tot undid his car seat and crawled out as she drove along a busy motorway. Sue Steward, 33, was driving to Lakeside along the A13 believing Arron, 20 months old, was safely strapped in his car seat in the back. Terror set

  • Rochford: Oh, brother...I've found you at last

    Two brothers have met each other for the first time after tracking each other down through the columns of one of our partner papers. It was a tearful reunion when Keith Schofield, 55, met his brother Sydney Cook, 57 - and realised they had lived just

  • Cricket: Hale stuns Stowmarket

    STOWMARKET..............................85 all out BRAINTREE............................................86-2 (Braintree won by eight wickets) (Jaygate Homes Championship Division Two) Braintree bounced back from the disappointment of their first defeat

  • Tennis: Emerson says Sampras is the greatest

    He's the greatest grasscourt player ever. That is the verdict on Pete Sampras by the man whose Grand Slam singles record the fast-serving American has just equalled - Roy Emerson. Both Emerson, in the 1960s, and Sampras in the 1990s, have won 12 Grand

  • Soccer: New sponsorship deal for Colchester sounds familiar...

    This Is Essex partner paper the Evening Gazette has linked up with Colchester United to sponsor the main stand at the U's Layer Road ground. And the deal, worth almost £10,000, will give readers the chance to win tickets to watch the U's in League and

  • Clacton: Pupils' charity trip full of Far Eastern promise

    A geography teacher is about to fly out to Bangkok with pupils from Clacton County High School to help in an orphanage. Ruth Hamer will be joined by pupils Tamsin Budd from year 11 and Richard Snow and Neil Thompson from the lower sixth for the adventure

  • New estate planned for Pitsea

    A new estate including homes and shops looks set to spring up on land in Pitsea. Plans have been put to Basildon Council for permission to build 38 flats, 14 shops and six detached lock-ups on old Commission for New Towns land. Lausanne Contractors in

  • Soccer: Wiggy wants chance to be Gills' new boss

    Steve Wignall, the man who guided Colchester United to two Wembley finals and two promotion play-off semi-finals, would relish the chance to do it again with Gillingham. The most successful manager in Colchester's Football League history, Wignall said

  • Soccer: Coleman's sights set high

    Southend United skipper Simon Coleman believes the Third Division club's players have been lifted by the feel good factor currently sweeping through Roots Hall. Following this week's appointment of former West Ham supremo Peter Storrie as the Seasiders

  • Cricket: Ian bowls career-best figures

    Ian Flanagan cast off his tag as a budding Essex batsman to post career best bowling figures for Jaygate Homes Two Counties Championship hopefuls Colchester and East Essex. There was an equally remarkable bowling performance from Braintree's hat-trick

  • Cricket: Green so close to first victory

    Eight Ash Green's second team are the only side yet to record a win this season in the Osborne League. But they could not have come closer to success than in their division three match with Tendring on Sunday. The Green set an impressive enough target

  • Walton: Legion set for club battle

    Old soldiers in Walton are preparing for battle. The British Legion Club in Vicarage Lane, which has been used by branch members of the Royal British Legion for more than 75 years, has seen a big rise in younger members. Now there is a move by the younger

  • Stansted: Meeting to avoid airport strike

    A last-ditch attempt at averting strike action at Stansted Airport was being made yesterday afternoon. Some 230 Servisair check-in staff, dispatch workers and clerical staff who are members of the GMB union have already rejected a 2.4 per cent pay offer

  • People panel blast from Harwich folk

    Harwich residents are the least satisfied with their area out of the whole of Tendring, a survey has revealed. The first citizen's panel has been interviewed by survey experts MORI to assess residents views on living in the district and the services provided

  • Colchester: Feuding pal jailed for pickaxe attack

    A dispute between two men ended with one of them being attacked with a pickaxe handle. Tommy Wallace invited James McPhail to a barbecue at the Flying Fox pub in Harwich Road, Colchester, he claimed to effect a reconciliation. But he hid a bag of pickaxe

  • Tasty time for memories

    Sitting in the sun smoking. It hasn't taken Taste Xperience long to get into the pop star way of life, at least not for one of them. To be fair it was only Russell I was chatting to, and the Southend trance act that signed a major deal with Manifesto

  • Come on sweet Caroline

    A familiar figure has returned to the Essex coastline. Radio Caroline has moored up at the end of Southend Pier and is readying itself for a month of 24-hour broadcasts beginning in July. GARY MAC boarded merchant vessel Ross Revenge - Caroline's home

  • Sandie's a star maker

    Got to sing? Got to dance? If your child is a budding star then Sandie Singer would like to hear from you. Sandie is one of the few selected casting agents who places children into West End shows, and she has recently set up on her own, after a period

  • Hatfield Peverel: Young actor Oliver on roll

    Superstardom could be just around the corner for a teenage actor from Hatfield Peverel. Oliver Jones, 16, landed himself a part in a rock and roll version of Romeo and Juliet with theatre company Pinpoint Productions. He hoped to clinch the lead role

  • Harwich: Prince's vintage mission

    Harwich was host to a prince and a fleet of vintage cars which were taking part in a charity rally. Prince Michael of Kent, pictured right, is heading a 3,000 mile drive across five countries to raise money for the charity the Friends of Russian Children

  • Cricket: Maldon lose a close encounter

    MALDON IV.......................................146 all out GREAT BENTLEY....................................147-9 (Great Bentley won by one wicket) Maldon's fourth team made the journey to Great Bentley whose main claim to fame is having the largest

  • Soccer: Hopes high for Colchester's Friday fun

    Colchester United fans were handed another boost today with the news there could be up to five Division Two games switched to Friday nights at Layer Road this season. U's managing director Stephen Gage revealed the move just four days after the club said

  • Road Running: Bailey leads ‘Reds’ to impressive run

    In the ever popular "Constable Country" five-mile race at Stratford St Mary, Tiptree Road Runners turned out in force and Malcolm Bailey led the 'Reds' with a good effort to finish just outside the 31 minute mark. Deb Childs produced another personal

  • Carpet Bowls: Defeats worrying

    Of their last five matches, Hunters Carpet Bowls Club have won just one, this being at home to Notley Green. They have lost at home to Pleshey and at Little Waltham and Stisted. Hunters' latest encounter was a return match at Pleshey, with eight games

  • Sible Hedingham: Pregnant woman rescued from floods

    A pregnant woman had to be rescued by medics after she was trapped in her home by a mudslide caused by flash flooding. The woman raised the alarm at 6pm on Monday after storms lashed her home in Wethersfield Road, Sible Hedingham. An ambulance service

  • Clacton: Youth club plan for problem estate

    Angry residents have demanded more facilities for children who have been over-running their estate. Monday night's meeting on Clacton's Cann Hall estate heard a disused field and a youth club could be among the possible solutions. About 50 people crowded

  • Dedham: Burglars escape with live turkeys

    Intruders have escaped with four young turkeys and chicken eggs from Dedham Rare Breeds Farm. Owner Peter Harris thinks the burglars, who may have been responsible for similar raids in the past, knew what they were after. The birds taken were black Norfolk

  • Benfleet: Man dies in crash

    Police were today appealing for witnesses after an elderly man died in a head-on crash. The accident happened when a red Austin Metro and a white Ford Transit van collided on a bend at the junction of Church Road and Rushbottom Lane in Benfleet at around

  • Great Bardfield: Banned druid claims victory

    A druid has been banned from trying to stop archaeologists removing an ancient wood circle from the sea. Buster Nolan, of Great Bardfield, was one of a group of protesters banned from the site of Seahenge in Norfolk by the High Court yesterday. The move

  • Bulphan: £100,000 jewellery snatched at gunpoint

    A masked robber broke into a home and held the family at gunpoint before making off with £100,000 of jewellery. The gunman, wearing a balaclava, broke into the house in Church Lane, Bulphan, shortly after midnight and made his way to a bedroom where a

  • Cricket: Nasser: I've learnt a lot!

    Nasser Hussain admits to having had a baptism of fire in his first game as England cricket captain. After leading his country to a seven-wicket win over New Zealand in the First Test at Edgbaston, Essex skipper Hussain admitted: "I thought it might take

  • Cricket: Poor batting leaves Essex fearing drop

    Essex were sent crashing to another National League defeat at Old Trafford where Lancashire coasted home by seven-wickets after being left a modest target of 169. Brittle batting once again explains why the County were unable to make a decent fight of

  • Bowls: Wonder Watkins lives up to billing

    Shoebury Park's Kevin Watkins, rated a good bet for honours before the singles began at the Midland Bank sponsored Southend Men's Open Bowls Tournament, is living up to that billing. When play got underway in the United Friendly Trophy yesterday, Watkins

  • Athletics: Chalvedon soar to district school's title

    Chalvedon were again overall champions at the Basildon senior schools' district athletic championships, staged at Gloucester Park. They triumphed on 1018 points from Mayflower, Billlericay, on 792 with Billericay third on 579. For boys' events, Chalvedon's

  • Golf: Duffin a step closer to Open

    Most of the region's professional and leading amateur golfers have been taking part in the pre-qualifying rounds for this year's Open. Clacton Golf Club playing professional Andy Duffin made it through to the next qualifying round after a superb 67 at

  • Colchester: Farmers' market set for first trial

    Farmers' market organisers today revealed some of the producers who will launch a new Colchester scheme. Small local producers will get the chance to sell their goods to customers who want to know where and how their food is grown at the special market

  • Woodham: County splashes out for pool

    Hopes for a new swimming pool at South Woodham Ferrers have been bolstered by financial backing from the county council. The council agreed to match the £750,000 already earmarked for the project by the borough council and £100,000 from South Woodham

  • Stansted: Airport strike is off

    Strike action at Stansted Airport has been called off while workers vote on a new pay offer. A meeting yesterday afternoon between ground handlers Servisair and the General Municipal and Boilermakers Union reached agreement on a deal which will give staff

  • Southend: Band leader moves on to a Swiss note

    Southend Youth Symphonic Band will be playing from the lighter side of their repertoire in the bandstand on Cliff Town Parade this Saturday at 7.30pm. Concert-goers will be treated to music from the West End shows and films on the evening which will be

  • Rochford, Canvey: £1m payout for injury at birth

    A 12-year-old girl has been awarded £1 million in the High Court for brain damage suffered when she was born at Rochford Hospital. South Essex Health Authority agreed to pay the damages to Francesca Goodwin, who was left with cerebral palsy after obstetrics

  • Rettendon: Woman trapped in wrecked car

    A young woman was trapped in her car for nearly an hour when it ploughed into a telegraph pole, splitting it in two. The driver was today recovering in intensive care at Basildon Hospital following the accident which happened at about 6.30pm last night

  • Angling: Best for Charlie

    Northlands Park has been producing some good carp, with the best of the week falling to Charlie Rayment. Charlie fished a short session in the caf lake to land a superb personal best mirror carp of 22lb on luncheon meat. The big fish was 6lb heavier than

  • Triathlon: Super-fit Nigel is Britain's best

    Benfleet triathlete Nigel Kimpton has just returned home from a successful work out in Madeira - gaining top place in the United Kingdom team. The 40-year-old finished seventh out of 100 athletes in the gruelling European Triathlon Championships, which

  • Cricket: Halstead fail to halt the slide

    Halstead crashed to their second successive East Anglian Premier League defeat, losing heavily against current leaders Vauxhall Mallards at Star Stile. Looking to bounce back from a comprehensive eight-wicket defeat against title contenders Cambridge

  • Tiptree: Restoring our heaths

    English Nature was supporting Essex Biodiversity Week yesterday at Tiptree Heath site of special scientific interest. Tiptree Heath is the county's largest surviving heathland where drastic management works have had to be undertaken to restore areas of

  • Tiptree seeks town status

    A village on the outskirts of Colchester may bid to become a town - just days after its big sister rejected the chance to be a city. Investigations are to begin which could ultimately see Tiptree become a town i but the village is split on the idea. The

  • EasyJet to fly route from Stansted

    Price wars at Stansted Airport look set to intensify after low-cost carrier EasyJet announced it would be flying out of the centre. It joins rival Go at the Essex airport - which could mean a bargain bonanza for passengers. The Luton-based airline, headed

  • Chelmsford boy's £3m payout

    A boy left with severe disabilities after being starved of oxygen at birth has been awarded almost £3 million compensation by the High Court. Now the grandmother of James Aston, six, has said the £2.9m awarded to him was a "just" figure. James, of Longshots

  • Men saved from car fire

    A passer-by saved two Colchester men from a car - minutes before it burst into flames. They were driving along the B1508 just outside the village of Bures at 11.45pm yesterday when the Ford Orion left the road and crashed into a tree. The passer-by saw

  • Maldon: Upset traders sign petition

    More than 20 traders have signed a petition complaining about a slump in business at a major event. Shopkeepers in Maldon High Street launched the move after claiming they lost trade during the recent town fair. A stretch of High Street between Market

  • East Bergholt: Fury over homes plan near village

    Residents have reacted furiously at a suggestion to develop land on the outskirts of the scenic village of East Bergholt. News that Babergh Council has been asked to consider including land bordered by Hadleigh Road, Hughes Road, the B1070 and A12 in

  • Clacton: Bakery wins fight for pavement cafe

    A company has been given the all-clear to trade from the forecourt of its Clacton town centre bakery - shattering a policy aimed at halting the practice in the resort. Baker's Oven in Station Road appealed against Tendring Council's decision to reject

  • Clacton on jellyfish alert

    Clacton has had an influx of unwelcome visitors - dozens of jellyfish. Soaring temperatures and sea defence works off the Clacton coastline have attracted a large concentration of jellyfish off one of the resort's beaches. And coastguards today warned

  • Clacton: Young computer genius Tom set to go worldwide

    He's been to America and the Hague. He plays three instruments and is a web designer. He has just received an award from Essex County Council - and he is only 14. Tom Middleditch is certainly not your average teenager. At his home in London Road, Clacton

  • New talent on show at Yates'

    If you're a bit of a '50s rocker at heart and you have some time to spare on a Friday evening the Twenty Flight Rock Club could be worth checking out. The club is situated within the Flights Leisure Centre, Aviation Way in Southend and has been running

  • Conduct becomes so romantic...

    Gifted musician Lance Oliver leads from the front - quite literally. TOM KING talks to the young conductor of Southend's Philharmonic Romanticism is a difficult word to define, but anybody in search of a working definition could do a lot worse than observe