NOVEMBER marked the 27th anniversary of one of the most moving, heart-tugging, determined and eventually triumphant mass public campaigns in local history – and in the involvement of this newspaper.

For, on what became known and publicised as BlackMonday, November 23 in 1987, the death sentence was pronounced on Southend Hospital’s deeply cherished cancer unit.

The then North East Thames Regional Health Authority had decided to centralise cancer treatment services at Harold Wood. It could not possibly have imagined what shock, disgust, anger and opposition it would trigger.

Campaign groups were launched in Basildon, Billericay, Rayleigh, Rochford, Benfleet, Southend, Hockley, Hullbridge, Corringham, Wickford, Shoebury, Wakering and other places around south Essex.

Public meetings were called, the then local MPs Sir Teddy Taylor, Sir Bernard Braine, Paul Channon and Dr Michael Clark were bombarded with letters of protest and heart-rending stories of what travel from this corner of the county to near Romford would mean to patients and their nearest and dearest.

Touching personal experiences were revealed publicly as relatives of patients at the Southend centre came forward to express their deepest admiration for the dedication of the hospital unit’s admired leader, Dr Colin Trask, and his team.

Public protest meetings galore were called. Huge demonstrations were organised and held along the Thames to Westminster and close to Downing Street.

The Echo carried daily coupons for readers to add their names, addresses and comments, to be forwarded to the Government. Tens of thousands of these were collected and delivered to Westminster.

Readers came forward with their own stories and their touching and moving letters about their support.

Day after day, week after week there were mass public gatherings, letters and forms in this newspaper’s pages and the most moving of interviews with cancer patients and their partners and families.

And then, unexpectedly, dramatically and wonderfully, a statement was released to the Echo and other press from then Minister of Health, John Moore.

It said: “In the light of the views expressed, we are not prepared to agree to the closure of the Southend radiotherapy unit.”

These words were read out to a packed gathering of Echo staff.

Amid the applause and the deafening cheers, there were tears, too.

Mass gatherings took place in the days immediately after the triumph for local democracy.

They met to hug and to shake hands and to say thank you.

They flooded the Southend Hospital cancer unit with thanks and also thanked Colin Trask, who has long since retired.

Many went on to fundraise for the hospital’s early scanner unit and equipment. Many are no longer with us, these 27 years after the incredible triumph.

Yet many remain to recall that incredible chapter in local history.