BBC rewind: online archive includes past videos of Southend

Five videos shot in Southend, and one telling the story of an incident which happened in Westcliff, dating from 1957 to 2012, can be viewed on the recently launched BBC Rewind service.

The archive displays a variety of people and events in the city throughout the decades including the Queen's visits to Southend and Basildon in 1999, a choir of a thousand children and 700 adults greeting the Olympic Torch in 2012, and a 2000 Look East segment on the popularity of Southend from the 1930s to then.

One incredible video which has been released is of a 14-year-old girl telling the story of how she rescued a woman drowning in the sea in Westcliff.

Maureen telling her incredible story to the reporter. Photo: BBC Archive

Read more >>> IN PICTURES: The inferno which damaged Southend Pier 46 years ago

Fourteen-year-old Maureen Stumbles of Peckham told BBC reporter Leonard Parkin in 1957 how she saved a woman from drowning in the sea in Westcliff.

The teenager went back to school after Easter, but didn't tell anyone of her heroics.

She told Mr Parkin: "I ran down the steps and jumped in the water and held her up for about a minute until a man came along and lifted her out."

Another video shows footage of an inferno which damaged Southend Pier in 1995.

In it, James Westhead talks to business owners and residents along the seafront as a major clean-up operation was underway after a fire ravaged the historic pier.

At its height flames reached 100 feet in the air.

It was the fourth fire on the disaster-prone pier at the time, which had only been restored to its former glory five years earlier. 

Upwards of 31,000 videos in total from across the UK can be viewed within the archive, which you can explore based on categories such as area and genre.

The whole archive can be accessed at the BBC Rewind website: www.bbcrewind.co.uk.

Are you in any of the clips? Do you recognise anyone in the videos? Let us know by emailing jessica.day-parker@newsquest.co.uk.