After the Second World War ended in May 1945, there was an outpouring of relief, with street parties and celebrations erupting everywhere.

Everyone wanted to let their hair down as VE Day was declared, and a long-awaited era of peace was on the horizon.

But as the dust settled there was much work to be done to get things back to some sort of normality.

Part of this was to rid Southend of its three-plus miles of anti-tank coastal defences.

After the Dunkirk evacuations in May and June of 1940, more than 2,000 concrete anti-tank blocks had been hastily erected across Southend, stretching for over three miles.

The unsightly blocks were 5ft square, seriously heavy, and in between each one had been placed barb wire in a bid to repel any enemy troops that might emerge from the sea and launch an attack.

Echo:  Lorries are lined up outside Southend businesses - including Rossi’s - to protect them from the demolition blasts Lorries are lined up outside Southend businesses - including Rossi’s - to protect them from the demolition blasts

On the beaches there were more defences - scaffolding poles intertwined with more barb wire.

As well as the tank traps, defence measures included pillboxes in Eastern Avenue and at Cuckoo Corner by the sewage works, plus machine gun trenches dug in a number of places including Station Road and Bournemouth Park Road.

Any invading Nazis who did reach Southchurch Avenue would then be met by a large gun emplacement.

Removing the guns and filling in the trenches after the war was one thing; but taking down the anti-tank blocks was a colossal project.

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Controlled explosions were used on many of the seafront blocks and at the most rapid pace, 50 a day were coming down.

Lorries would be strategically placed outside shops and cafes to take the force of the explosions and prevent businesses from suffering any damage.

After a while a new ‘silent drilling’ method began to be used to destroy the blocks.

This involved a hole being drilled 3ft into the concrete and a water cartridge being inserted into the opening. Two men then finished off the demolition by screwing down the cartridge. Without any noise large cracks would then appear and the blocks began to split and fall apart.

In general however, the whole process of getting Southend back to normal was a noisy and dusty job.

Echo: This photo from March 1945 shows Southenders retrieving their paddling boats and funfair equipment from their dusty storage places. This photo from March 1945 shows Southenders retrieving their paddling boats and funfair equipment from their dusty storage places.

Two elderly ladies visiting Southend for a holiday in the summer of 1945 were not happy with the disruption.

They actually went to the a police station in the town and demanded the work be halted under their holiday came to end five days later. They were most put out when both police and the council leaders refused to comply with their request.

Around this time paddling boats, fun fair equipment and other entertainment memorabilia finally started coming back out of storage, where it had been placed for the duration of the war.

At the beginning of the war boats from the paddling pool and other seafront attractions had to be locked away in cow sheds, barns and even orchards as threat of enemy bombing drove entertainment to a halt in the town.

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One of the photographs in our gallery shows some of the equipment being carried out of storage and back to its home.

Fairgrounds rides would start to be re-implemented on the seafront, but because so many men were still serving abroad the rides could only be operated at weekends by the ride owners and their friends.

Defence measures from the war would continue to be found and destroyed for months and even years to come.

In 1947 two ten-foot-long drainpipes, each packed with gelignite - an explosive substance similar to dynamite - were found in the garden of a house in Eastern Esplanade, Thorpe Bay, where two women lived.

The pipes were just below ground surface and along with many similar mines, had been laid in Thorpe Bay as anti-invasion measure. The pipes were blown up in a controlled explosion.

Anti-tank mines and explosives had played their part in keeping Southenders safe during the war as the threat of an enemy attack loomed.

Echo: Workmen use the new ‘silent drilling’ method to force cracks into the anti-tank blocks along the seafrontWorkmen use the new ‘silent drilling’ method to force cracks into the anti-tank blocks along the seafront

However, one in September 1943 one 19-year-old lad had used an anti tank mined for murderous purposes.

Eric Brown, a private in the army’s Suffolk Regiment, placed an anti-tank mine underneath his invalid father’s wheelchair.

When the mine went off his father was blown to pieces. Bits of him were found in gardens and trees all around.

Archibald Brown, 47, lived in London Hill, Rayleigh and had been a miller - even owning his own mill- until an illness had rendered him paralysed.

He had been an invalid for four years and unable to walk for two years when his son decided to kill him by placing the explosive under his wheelchair.

When Brown senior went outside he had to be pushed by a nurse.

On the day of his murder his nurse had pushed him for about a mile along Hockley Road, then stopped so that Brown could light a cigarette. He fiddled around in his chair searching for a lighter in his pockets, then lit a cigarette just as the nurse stepped back.

Echo: The demolition of the blocks in progress along the seafront in 1945The demolition of the blocks in progress along the seafront in 1945

The mine exploded and there was nothing left of Mr Brown or his chair. The nurse was badly injured by the blast but she would survive.

Eric Brown had been on compassionate leave from the army at the time so that he could help find someone to take over his mill.

At the trial held at the Essex Assizes in November of the same years, Eric admitted planting the bomb, saying: “I decided the only real way that my mother could leave a normal life and for my father to be relieved of his sufferings was for him to die mercifully.

“I therefore decided to cause his death in a manner that would leave him no longer in suffering.”

The court heard how Mr Brown senior had become violent with his wife (Eric’s mother) due to his illness. He was said to have been ‘stern’ with Eric when he was a child and that both wife and son had become afraid of him.

Eric was found guilty of murder but was declared to be insane. A doctor had given evidence that he found Brown to be showing signs of schizophrenia. A judge committed him to a lunatic asylum for an unspecified amount of time.