My life on Canvey 1948 to 1970 by Eddie Terry
CANVEY CHARACTERS - Part One

I think that these well known characters of the fifites deserve pages for themselves.
In recalling these people I have mentioned names, now this is no way meant to be derogatory or to put them down, in fact I am putting them on a pedestal as they are an integral part of Canvey's history and I hope that older residents who read this can also remember these characters and have a little laugh and maybe an odd tear. These are some of the people I can recall during my early years.

The first one I can recall seeing when I moved to Canvey was the Bird Man who used to stand on the corner opposite the Haystack Pub and feed all the birds and sing to himself, the song went something like this:

... I'll be pleased to hear the noisy aero planes shan't I - shocking - the damn noise affects me - I can't work for years and years and years every fortnight. Then he would go and recite a cure for a cold which went something like this "two ounces oil of linseed, one ounce oil of turpentine" etc.

A harmless happy person we were told that he was a wartime pilot suffering from shell-shock.

Mrs. Freeman and her daughter, known as The Cat Lady who wore what I can only describe as St Trinians girls uniform (a short skirt with stockings full of holes) and a beret pulled down over her ears and pushing a Tansad canvas pram around Canvey with her cats wrapped up in blankets lying like a pair of babies in the pram.

Fred and Bill McCabe (McCave?) - Fred was the Editor of Canvey News and Benfleet Recorder and known to us boys as Canvey's leading crime reporter, we used to rib him every time we saw him by asking him if he had caught any villains lately. His brother Bill was a builder and every time we saw him we would say "Keep your chin up Bill" now all the readers who can recall Bill will know the significance of this remark.

Jack Bradley known to everyone as Cockle Jack (a rather rotund man) who owned the very popular cafe opposite the Haystack was always outside selling seafood from his stall while his better half Ann and her helper Kit Foster did the serving inside.

Peggy Della with her red beret and rather rotund figure - whose rich loud baritone voice could be heard echoing from the Haystack to Lakeside Corner. Her command of the English language - very colourful to say the least - was an education and her rude answers shouted to us on the other side of the road to some very rude personal insulting questions burnt your ears, a truly a remarkabe character.

Peter Bond who always wore a knee length maroon jacket and drove around Canvey in a Hudson Terraplane convertible with his two mates sitting up on top of the back seats the car being previously owned by Dianna Dors (So we were led to believe!)

Lt. Col. Horace P Fielder a leading Tory Party figure who owned the local caravan park (who I think eventually had the Conservative Hall named after him) and had this fanatical notion in his head that all of the local yobs had but one thing on their minds and that was to rape and pillage every one of his female holiday makers and therefore maintained a 24 hour guard on his site trying to chase off any local intruder with his walking stick, but one man with a limp and a bike was no match for the 'Hungry' erect (metaphorically of course) Canvey boys who he called 'Those horrible Oyster Fleet boys'. Looking back in retrospect I would have done the same thing as him because that's what we were after, but then a faint heart never won a fair lady. He also had a very nice looking wife called Barbara who was once a Canvey beauty queen (I think)