Here's an incredible image of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill on a visit to Shoebury as you will never have seen it before.
It may have been our darkest hour, but this picture - originally in black and white - has been colourised by design engineer Paul Reynolds as part of his new book Retrographic, which gives colour to many iconic scenes from the war years.
This picture shows Mr Churchill taking aim with a Sten gun during a visit to the Royal Artillery experimental station at Shoebury, on June 13, 1941.
The man in a pinstripe suite to the right of picture is Mr Churchill's bodyguard Walter H. Thompson, who also had a local link. In his autobiography he mentioned that his parents ran a shop in Westcliff.
It may well have been on this very visit that Mr Churchill tried to pay a visit to the then Southend Mayor in order to grab a spot of breakfast, thus sparking another great Churchill story.
Former Southend mace-bearer Keith Holderness set out to uncovered the story of Churchill’s early morning visit to the mayor’s lodge, Porters, one morning in 1941.
It is said there was a knock at the door of Porters. The door was answered by the housekeeper, Mrs Ernie Turner. She was the wife of the mace-bearer, and in keeping with tradition, the couple resided at Porters.
At the doorstep, she discovered an instantly recognizable face. The Prime Minister had come to Southend unannounced, to visit the naval establishment at Shoebury.
Now Churchill, who believed in three square meals a day, wanted breakfast. Who better to provide it than the mayor of Southend?
“He mistakenly thought that the mayor actually lived in Porters, though that wasn’t the case,” Keith told the Echo several years ago.
However, Churchill got what he coveted far more than a meeting with a local official. Elsie cooked him bacon and eggs, and he was by all accounts well satisfied with his visit."
Paul Reynold's amazing colour pictures can be seen in Retrographic, available on amazon.co.uk
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