Today marks Beyond the Point’s second birthday. This time two years ago, we had just returned to investigate the semi-buried remnants at the northern-most point of the Occidental Oil-Refinery on Canvey Island, which first sparked our interest when stumbled across the mysterious remains, which we first discovered days after the Royal Wedding of 2011. After investigation, we visited Two Tree Island and discovered the remains of a WW2 Pillbox and the old sewage works which used to be there. This can be followed by looking at our earliest articles on this site. It was here we decided to record our findings as a ‘blog’, an online diary in which never aimed to pitch to others, instead just as a ‘dumpsite’ for our findings, so they were accessible anywhere via the internet. However, it has since snowballed into something much bigger.
With a feature-length DVD documentary on Canvey Island, a permanent exhibition on Canvey Through Time at The Bay Museum, and having covered numerous VIP events and locations throughout our time running, we believe we can call ourselves a true ‘organisation’. In the past week, we have been awarded both Best National Heritage Website and Community Heritage Archive of the year 2012, not to be succeeded until 2014. Following this, we had our celebration of this two evenings ago, in which we saw a huge range of those who have supported us along the way, in attendance. That morning, we visited the BBC Essex radio studio in which we were interviewed by Dave Monk live. You can listen to this below. We are very pleased at how other people value our work, and it is for this that it makes life worth living, and BTP worth doing – to actually produce something that is worth something to more than just one’s own enjoyment.
Over the near future, Beyond the Point plan on upgrading the interactive map on this site, making it more extensive. We are shortly to receive the privilege of showing Wilko Johnson, guitarist of local band Dr. Feelgood, around his former secondary school, Westcliff High School For Boys, which I attend at present. This will be part of a project between BTP and the school to revive knowledge of the school’s history in form of a feature-length documentary coming very soon. We have also been producing a partially re-enacted documentary on the 1953 North Sea Floods, entitled ‘Midnight’, which will be concluded before Christmas this year, having been in production since the 60th Anniversary of the Floods this January. We will also be presenting a shorter feature on Stow Maries Aerodrome. In a few weeks time, the boys, along with local enthusiasts Jack Swestun and Alex Evans, will be following through with their passion for the great outdoors. With a trusty new tent and a knowledge of foliage scavenging, we will set out on a weekend holiday – BTP style. They will be trekking the Knet side of the Thames, and will be visiting Shornemead, Newtavern, and Cliffe Fort, as well as the spectacularly massive Cliffe WW1 Explosives Factory (covering a land-mass the size of Canvey Island) along the way. You can see our preparations in form of video reviews and guides here in our series ‘Surviving the British Countryside’:
Surviving the British Countryside Videos:
Finally, we will leave you with these images depicting our escapades across the years so far.
