HERE in the Maldon district we have a great heritage of diaries and diarists.

Whether kept by residents themselves, or locals appearing in other, sometimes world-famous diaries, these personal often intimate records can give us fascinating, human insights into the everyday lives of people from the past.

Take, for example, one of Maldon’s most well-known sons, the clergyman/benefactor, Dr Thomas Plume (1630-1704).

He features in both the acclaimed diary of Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) and the more obscure one kept by John Evelyn (1620-1706).

Both diarists seem to have been impressed by Dr Plume and his theological teachings – Pepys commenting on September 1, 1666, that he was “a very excellent scholar and preacher” and Evelyn similarly noting on September 16, 1666, that “Mr Plume preached very well”.

During the following century, the miller’s son at Beeleigh, John Crosier (1753-1794) wrote his own diary. As well as containing snippets about his father’s business dealings and Maldon society gossip, it is also full of holiday-making and sight-seeing, a prominent part of John’s short life.

His diary runs (retrospectively) from 1753 and ends in 1788. Published in AFJ Brown’s Essex People, the original manuscript was lost for many years, but has recently been re-discovered.

Moving forward again, that larger than life character, Dr John Henry Salter, of Tolleshunt D’Arcy, maintained his diary from 1849 to 1932 (from the ages of eight to 91). It ran into an incredible 80 volumes, represented 30,000 days and contained 10 million words.

Sadly it was destroyed in a bombing incident during the Second World War, but not before an abridged version had been published by Bodley Head in 1933, edited by the then mayor of Chelmsford, J O Thompson. It is a scarce tome now, but still occasionally turns up in second-hand bookshops and makes for a truly fascinating read.

In more recent times the late veteran politician Tony Benn (1925-2014), who lived at Stansgate, was a pre-eminent political diarist.

In fact his archive has just been accepted in lieu of inheritance tax and permanently allocated to the British Library.

It has also been published for public consumption in nine volumes and covers the years 1940 to 2009.

Described by the Observer as “one of the most fascinating and warmly rewarding reads in the political canon”, regardless of your party preferences you can’t help but be moved by the sincerity, honesty and sensitivity of its many words.

It was around 1900 that the Benn family moved into Stansgate House, overlooking the River Blackwater, Osea Island and built on land that had once formed at least part of Stansgate Abbey (albeit not the main cloister).

I have long been interested in local ecclesiastical history – our parish churches, medieval chapels and abbeys and priories.

In 1998 I researched the story of the original abbey at Stansgate.

It was founded in the early 12th century as an alien priory of Clunic monks and was dissolved in 1525 in favour of Cardinal Wolsey’s failed college scheme.

I pulled together some 20 pages of notes on the abbey and for some reason decided at the time to send a copy to Tony Benn.

Not really thinking any more of it, I was then pleasantly surprised to receive a series of phone calls from him and, later through the post, his own research on the abbey – consisting of more than 100 pages, photocopied on House of Commons paper and with an inscription “For Stephen with best wishes Tony Benn”.

History can certainly be a great leveller and that’s where these two facets of local research come together – monastic heritage and diaries.

Tony Benn’s published volume Free at Last covers the diary years 1991-2001 and I had a read of the entries for the year that we exchanged correspondence.

In 1998 he talks of Bill Clinton’s alleged affair with Monica Lewinsky, the Iraq disarmament crisis, the Good Friday agreement, Indian and Pakistan Nuclear testing, the Omagh bombing and airstrikes on Iraq.

Nearer to home he recalls “a lovely evening (at Stansgate), the tide was high”, the “Steeple Country Fair”; going to “Southminster to get the papers”, and catching the 7.33 from London to the station there where “Caroline met me and we went back to Stansgate together”.

American-born, Caroline (DeCamp) was his wife and was clearly very ill throughout 1998 (she eventually died in 2000).

Tony Benn, himself, passed away in 2014.

Some might say he was political Marmite, but there is no doubt that he achieved much during his 88 years on this earth and, in particular, throughout his long, distinguished and unswerving political career.

He was variously a member of the House of Lords as Viscount Stansgate (1960-63) which he renounced, MP for Bristol South-East (1963-83), Postmaster General (1964-66), Minister of Technology (1966-70), Chairman of the Labour Party (1971-72), Secretary of State for Industry (1974-75), Secretary of State for Energy (1975-79), MP for Chesterfield (1984-2001), President of the Stop the War Coalition (2001-14) and, of course, a great diarist.

I recently bumped into one of his sons, Hilary, in of all places Maldon’s Swan Hotel.

Hilary has followed in his father’s footsteps and is now also a respected MP (for Leeds Central).

I told him about my earlier exchange with his father and how impressed I had been that he found time to share notes on Stansgate Abbey.

Just like John Crosier’s and Dr Salter’s memoirs, Tony Benn’s diaries constitute a unique, very human record of a life for which historians, current and future, national and local, will continue to be eternally thankful.