SIXTY years ago Basildon was still a fledgling town. One of eight ‘new towns’ created following World War II to alleviate the capital’s overcrowding problems, Basildon had been officially in the pipeline since 1948 when Lewis Silkin, Minister of town and country planning, came to Laindon and promised: “Basildon will become a city which people from all over the world will want to visit.”

But what was life actually like during those early years? We’ve dug out dusty old copies of the Basildon Standard newspaper for 1957. Each week stories about the town, its new inhabitants and willing workers, planning developments and community news, took up column inches.

The articles give us an insight into how these rookie residents were adapting to upping sticks and moving to this wonderful new ‘Basildon’.

By this time many big businesses had come to the town. Bonallack Coachbuilders were one of the first big names then in 1957 Ford Motor Company opened a purpose built radiator plant.

The lure of jobs enticed many new workers to make the move from the London boroughs.

People like Mr Arthur Bragg.,who was one of the first employees at Freedman’s Upholstering Company. When the company decided to open up a factory on the Nevendon Industrial Estate in 1954. Mr Bragg moved to the town from Woodford Green.

He told the Standard of his hope for a new life in his new home.

Another worker, Peter Lawrence moved into his new house in Hockley Road, Barstable, after receiving the allocation notice from the Basildon Development Corporation on the eve of his wedding in September 1955. Mr Lawrence and his wife Betty spent their honeymoon moving in to their new address. Previously they lived in Newbury Park and Mr Lawrence had taken up a job in the aircraft drawing office at Teleflex Products in Basildon.

Meanwhile keen ballroom dancer Mrs Violet Sewell was in charge of 30 machinists thanks to her job as a charge-hand at Christopher Roberts New Town Clothing Factory. The firm employed 80 women. Before moving to their new home in King Edward Road, Laindon, she and her family lived in a council prefab in Worthing Road, Laindon.

Machine operator Margaret Lord of Falkenham Road, Fryerns, was working at Ben Williams’ Basildon factory while her husband was employed at Howards Dairies in Basildon.

They made the move from Ilford where they had little hope of ever having a home of their own. “We are quite happy here, we have a house of our own. When the town is finished it will be really nice living here,” said Mrs Lord.

At this time Basildon had a population of around 60,000. More than 1051 applicants, including 558 priority cases were on Basildon Council’s waiting list. The birth rate in Basildon during this time was 19.29 per 1,000 - above the national average.

Infectious diseases were causing concern though and doctors had seen a considerable rise in the number of measles cases reported - with 1,040 cases in one year.

By the middle of the year the occupants of Basildon Development Corporation’s 5,000th house had their keys. Mr and Mrs Croton and their three children moved into Bonnygate in Fryens from their home in Wandsworth.

Despite the positivity surrounding the creation of a new town, the Suez crisis and the petrol rationing shortage, was driving many of Basildon’s earliest tenants away – 3,600 miles away to Canada in fact.

The number of families emigrating to Canada had soared from 100 a year to 100 a month, according to south Essex estate agents at the time. The matched a national trend. From 1954 the number of British people moving to Canada was 47,000, by 1956 it had increased to 53,000.

Mr Reg Fryer, managing director of a travel agency in Southend told the Standard: “It is a fantastic snowball. Those who go are followed by their relatives and friends.

“For six years we have been dealing with Canada-bound families at the rate of 100 a year but since the Suez everyone who was thinking of emigrating suddenly made up their minds and decided to go.”

However the hope of new life abroad didn’t turn out to be a dream for everyone. Kenneth Bloor of Redgrave Road, Vange, took the wise step of moving by himself to Canada first before uprooting his wife and children. Although he quickly secured a well -paid job as an engineer, he realised it would be a struggle to establish himself in Canada and he flew home.

He told the Basildon Standard it had been a “great mistake” to compare the dollars of Canada with the money in England .”

“A man can earn a living wage there but to buy furniture and rent property for a family would entail a real struggle,” he said. He was also struck by the lack of job stability in Canada at the time.

So what else was happening in Basildon new town? Well, Mrs Gladyns Lowne of Quilters Straight, Basildon made the local news when she gave birth to a baby weighing a whopping 13lb. Little David William had been delivered at home by district nurse.

In February of 1957, Pitsea Police Station got its very first female constable - Miss Joan Best of Rectory Road, Pitsea while in May, 18-year-old typist Jacqueline Miller, of Great Spenders, was crowned “Miss Basildon”.

Women’s equality was still some way off though. In August the Standard began a new weekly feature entitled “pretty girls” with the words: “Who says Basildon hasn’t got any pretty girls, each week we intend to print a picture of one of them and we are making no attempt to find the prettiest - we leave that to your judgement”.

The new town was also attracting some famous and important visitors. The Bishop of Brentwood the Rt Rev Bernard Wall visited the town to bless the new St Teresa convent and primary school. In the summer of ‘57 the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester toured Basildon, while panellist and star of the TV show, What’s My Line? Lady Isobel Barnett, dropped into the newly opened Willerbys factory in Basildon bringing , according to the newspaper, “all the grace and charm of her studio personality”.

The Standard featured numerous weddings every week, however one grabbed attention simply because the groom decided not to wear a tie. The headline “open necked bridegroom” told how Mr Derek Cordery ditched his tie because of the “heat and excitement of the occasion”.