You’ve probably looked at the BBC Website for news, weather and sport. But there’s much more. For example, their history section has an archive of people’s memories of World War 2. This includes loads of stuff from Essex. , for example:
A chap called Brian Cable from Rayleigh has written quite a few pages about soldiers, schooling, air raid shelters and Love Lane School.
A lady called Ruby Shannon has an interesting page about many things, including Bren-Gun carriers at Fitzwimarc School.
We’d quote some examples, but there are copyright problems!