LAST week’s Maldon and Burnham Standard saw local historian Stephen Nunn hit a major milestone with the paper.

His feature – about Maldon Christmas puddings – was his 600th for the Standard.

And the veteran columnist says there are still plenty of rich seams of the area’s fascinating heritage to be mined.

It’s 37 years since his first column in December 1985 - a feature entitled ‘Domesday Maldon’.

He said: “Years and years ago I got talking to the then editor John Savage and he said ‘you seem really interested in local history’.

“I said I’d been researching it since primary school.”

Stephen was given page space for 200-word articles … with no illustrations.

“I did that for a while,” he said.

“Then the editor said they were going down well and I could increase the word count to 400-500 and work in a couple of pictures and it grew from there.

“Every time the was a new editor I thought it would stop, but instead it really took off.”

In 2011, the Standard helped spearhead Stephen’s campaign to add the missing names of fallen heroes to the town war memorial

“To say thank you, I said I would write features,” he said.

“They became fortnightly and then weekly, and last week’s was the 600th.”

His collections of artefacts, personal library and the internet means Stephen has everything he needs at home to research his articles.

“I try to vary it, so there might be something on a village one week and then I’m back in Maldon the next," he said.

“I do try not to repeat subjects, but when I was mayor in 2014 there was a First World War feature every month to mark the centenary.”

He can trace his love of history back to his early school days.

“My passion has always been history,” said Stephen.

“I went to All Saints’ Primary and one of the teachers had an ‘interest table’ and brought in old things, which is what started it all.

“At the Plume School I wasn’t very academic at all. I loved history but it was all Lenin’s Russia and Chiang Kai-shek’s China, and I just wasn’t interested.

"But a teacher called Peter Came helped me by taking me to look at the archives at the Essex Record Office.

“Then a family friend called Bill Petchey, who had a PhD in Tudor Maldon, used to correct and mark my research, and that set me on the right track.”

Stephen spent much of his teenage years digging for old Victorian bottles along the town’s former railway line.

His interest in aviation heritage grew during his time as a Flight Sergeant in Maldon’s (1207) Air Training Corps and as a member of the Essex Aviation (Archaeology) Group.

His love of history has resulted in nine books, including his latest – Maldon and Heybridge Through Time.

Stephen has also written for Essex Countryside, the Dalesman and Country Life magazines, as well as giving guided walks and talks.

“I’ll keep writing and researching because it’s a big part of my life,” he said.

“I am just fortunate my wife Christine is interested in Maldon as well, even though she is from North Yorkshire.

“I’m writing about the place I was born, and live in and love, and just want to share the story of this place.”