As Friday became Saturday, and clubbers and party-goers at Basildon's Festival Leisure Park celebrated the Easter weekend, few paused to remember that roughly one mile away a handful of unemployed labourers huddled around a makeshift bonfire.
But rather than spending Easter Friday in a busy nightclub, the Newshound whiled away the wee hours of yesterday morning on the picket line outside the town's now notorious 'Visteon' plant.
Axed Visteon workers, who supplied car radiators to Ford for over 45 years, have been picketing the building since they were made redundant on Tuesday 31st March.
Workers were given no notice of their redundancy and were told that they would not receive the severance packages that their contracts guaranteed them.
The Newshound can now exclusively reveal that on Tuesday 31st March, the day that the company went into administration, office staff at the plant were ejected from the premises at noon. Company computers were swiftly shut down.
However, manual labourers were ordered to continue producing stock for another hour.
Workers were not paid for the extra hour, meaning that their labour went unaccounted for, and the absence of office staff ensured that the surplus radiators were never logged either.
Echo reporter Jon Austin last week revealed that company director Stephen Gawne is planning to re-open the firm under a new name, scrap the existing Ford contracts and employ cheap labourers from Eastern Europe.
Speculation at the plant is that the secret stash of radiators was to be sold, under the radar of the Inland Revenue, to tide Gawne over until his plan came to fruition.
However, protestors have stymied the rumoured plot by blocking both major entrances to the plant for the last fortnight, making it impossible to shift the radiators from the premises.
Stay tuned for a full account and exclusive pictures of the Newshound's time on the picket line.
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