They don't make 'em like this any more -- not the bricks, nor the men.

These photographs, dating from the 1930s, are among many treasured possessions of Bill Caten, a collector of memorabilia. That's him, stripped to the waist and trundling with skill and ease a heavy haul of bricks.

He was in his 20s then. Last month he turned 83. Now he has asked This Is Essex to help to jog the memories of other survivors of those far off days in Eastwood or from families of the men who made the bricks. He would love to hear from them.

The trilby-hatted man alongside a pile of bricks is Henry Gale, who ran the old brickfields at Lambeth Road. Eastwood.

He and his workers turned out the many thousands of mainly stock bricks that in time would swamp a then rural, isolated community on the edge of Southend, nudging up to Rayleigh, and turn it into a huge slice of suburbia.

Bill can recall only one name among the four cheerful chaps who faced the camera in a rare moment of resting from incredible labours -- bare chested Ernie Pile, second from left.

It is believed that, later, Ernie joined the staff of the old Southend Standard in Clifftown Road and became one of the press crew in the basement works.

The other picture here shows eight of the gang of 11 workers who made up the team in which Bill laboured 12 hours a day.

"It was incredibly hard work," Bill recalls. "We used to spend most of every day running everywhere, with no time to lose.

"On good days we could turn out 10,000 bricks and we were paid so much per thousand, to share between us. On bad days when things went wrong we might earn almost nothing."

Bill lived off Eastwood Rise in an untamed and remote area inhabited mostly by gypsies in decorated, horsedrawn vans.

His family had moved from Edmonton, in north London, when he was small and he had to walk the two and a half miles each way to and from Love Lane School in Rayleigh.

"We thought nothing of it then," Bill recalls. "My mum used to give my brothers and me packed sandwich lunches and off we would go.

"My dad had to travel to London every day to find work. He would go on one of those old City Coaches, the single-decker dark brown and light brown buses that went from Southend through the country towns to Wood Green.

"The drivers often waited for him along the Eastwood Road, at the foot of The Rise, if the coach was early or he was late. I got a job in the brickfields but, later, we moved to Southend and for years I ran a building and decorating business from South Avenue."

A serious back injury ended that career for Bill in his late 50s. He had already become a self-taught expert in radio, electronics and motor engineering, so his life took another course.

He and his family moved back to Eastwood where Bill and his wife still live in Glenwood Avenue.

He is well known as an avid collector of old wireless and gramophone sets and radio valves, as well as theatre programmes and books.

Part of his huge collection of products from Southend's world famous EK Cole (EKCO) radio and TV production line is on permanent display at Priory Park museum.

Today Eastwood consists of vast housing estates developed from the late 1950s and into the '70s. With Shoebury, it was embraced by the arms of Southend county borough in 1933 as the last areas to be incorporated by the town.

The brickfields where Bill Caten, his brothers and their pals laboured back then have since disappeared under the spread of development.

The pioneers of those long-ago, brick-making years have mostly passed on now. But if any remain to help tell the story, call Bill on 01702 525715.

Friends -- Ernie Pile, barechested, with his chums, left

(Right) Heavy load -- Bill Caten hard at work shifting bricks

Tough job -- eight of the 11-man team who worked at Henry Gale's Eastwood brickworks back in the 1930s

(Below right) In charge -- Henry Gale who ran the brickworks

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.