Essex Book Festival organisers are gearing themselves for one final chapter for their 2018 season.

Following a hugely successful event with star names, jam-packed talks and plenty of workshops on courses, the book festival finally weighs anchor at Jaywick’s Martello Tower.

Seeing off this year’s festival in style tomorrow’s all day event has the theme of peace running through it.

Running from 10am to 4pm, there are a whole host of events for both young and old to take part in including the Festival Peace Wall where both children and adults have been sharing what peace means to them, writing and drawing messages of peace to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War.

There’s also a chance to see the festival’s 1,000 origami cranes, in memory of Sadako Sasaki, a victim of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. All cranes made so far this March will be exhibited at the Tower.

Festival director Ross Green says: “We had a thousand Peace Cranes target for our Festival Finale at Jaywick Martello Tower and we are very very close to it now thanks to support from Essex Children’s University and others.

“We even have more than 500 cranes made by school children in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that would happen, although I am lucky that my best friend from school Karen Masatsugu is a teacher in Nagasaki.”

Between 10.30am and 12.30pm, there’s a beachcombing writing workshop in which Essex-based authors Judith Wolton and Wendy Constance will be taking writers on a walk along the beach before returning to the tower to write-up their inspirations, while Wendy returns at 2pm to 3pm for a special natural world storytelling session. Then from 1.30pm to 4pm, the Sumi Ink Club run by Liz Spalding, Robert Lock and Andy Gibbs, will be inviting everyone to create a community mural that will evolve and grow throughout the afternoon on the theme of Peace, Place and Community.

Finally what better way to finish than with Essex-based traditional French and Breton four-piece band Bof!

Tickets for the evening event are priced £10 and £8 for 27yrs and under, available from the Mercury Theatre box office on 01206 573948. Bowls of vichyssoise and baguettes will be served in the interval to warm the cockles and fuel the dancing. For more information go on-line to essexbookfestival.org.uk