Ralph Walker commented about seeing an oyster under Southend Pier, which obviously surprised him.

Having been a sea angler for more than 50 years, always digging my own bait, I can tell him there are now many thousands of immature oysters off our beaches which are collected by groups of women.

I’ve seen them many times by the old gasworks jetty loading them into a trailer in their hundreds.

While working on the old garrison site with a gang of ceiling fixers, they collected oysters daily to make soup.

While the Thames has been cleaned up since it died in 1952, with zero oxygen, these shellfish are still considered to be contaminated by some people and not fit for food.

Other species have now arrived in the last ten years, like razorfish, never seen before, previously only dug by us on the Kent coast.

I only hope the collectors are not supplying restaurants.

T E Langley
Cumberland Avenue
Southend