Check out these traffic stopping photos from the Echo’s vintage vault.
The black and white images take you back to a time when traffic wardens were actually liked by the public. Well, maybe not liked, but perhaps tolerated?
The photos were taken by Echo snappers in 1967.
They show men and women being trained to become wardens in the classroom and also picture them on the beat and even directing traffic in Southend.
Traffic wardens were still a relatively new thing at the time.
The first ever traffic wardens in the UK were introduced in Westminster, London in 1960.
They were later introduced across the rest of the country.
In 1965 Southend police and council bosses made legal amendments so that traffic wardens could be trained to direct traffic on the borough’s roads - a job normally only done by police.
The wardens were given lessons in point duty and traffic control.
Less than a year after these photos were taken, in 1968, a band of 25 Southend traffic wardens made national headlines when they voted for a six-day strike following a row over working conditions.
The walkout was called off at the eleventh hour after an agreement was reached.
New wardens were being scouted for in Southend in 1973 when a series of job advertisements were taken out to recruit staff.
The tag line of the ads was “a well-paid, healthy life, with interest”.
Candidates had to be aged between 18 and 50 and would be paid between £21-£25 per week.
Read more
- How Essex couples once flocked to get married on Christmas Day
- Memories of south Essex's own Christmas cracker factory long gone from the A127
- From the Echo archive: 12 pictures of Southend's Kursaal in it's heyday
In 1993 Southend launched a pilot scheme which saw its traffic wardens using bicycles on their patrols instead of moving around on foot.
One warden from Maldon, however, had been cycling about on his shift for a long time.
In 1971, Sid Bamford - then the only traffic warden serving Maldon - was given special permission to use a bike on his round because walking around on his beat was giving him painful corns on his feet.
In 1985 one Benfleet traffic warden showed he had a big heart when, instead of planting a fine on people’s cars, he put a greeting card on their windscreen instead.
John Reed put cards on windscreens instead of a ticket, showing a cartoon of a flustered traffic warden with parking tickets and bits of car around him.
Inside the cards read: “Please don’t park here again. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from your local traffic wardens.”
Showing drivers a card instead of a penalty appeared to be working just fine.
John, 47, who patrolled Benfleet, said: “Drivers have reacted very well. They have had a laugh. Obviously in the past some have been known to lose their tempers with us but a little seasonal good cheer helps matters.”
