News from around the County

Model men with Essex roots

DAVID Gandy (right) is the hot hunk in skimpy white Speedos in the Dolce & Gabbana perfume advert, but did you know he is not an Italian Stallion - he comes from Billericay.
And Paul Sculfor, the one time brickie turned male model who dated both Jennjifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz, is also an Essex hunk from Hornchurch.
Read how these two men have caused a stir in the world of modelling and how they have attained celebrity status and built up a huge worldwide fan club.

THE LeeStock Music Festival , set up in memoru of Lee Dunford,is delighted to announce it’s full line up for 2012 to be held at AFC Sudbury’s MEL Group Stadium on June 3rd.The Suffolk festival, now in it’s fifth year, will run alongside the successful Live and Kicking festival, held at the same venue on the following day.Tickets on sale now – only £20. Buy online at gigantic.com
Having already announced US indie rockers, Wheatus (Teenage Dirtbag, A Little Respect) will be topping the bill, D:Ream have been announced as the main support for Wheatus. Their biggest hit ‘Things can only get better’ was a number one hit back in 1993. Mark Morriss of The Bluetones and Nigel Clark of Dodgy also both return to Suffolk after headlining last year’s festival. Wheatus front-man Brendan B. Brown said “We’re proud to be involved and can’t wait to play at LeeStock 2012.″
For more information visit: www.leestock.org

RESIDENTS are being advised to be on the alert for a cold-calling plumber targeting elderly people in a series of doorstep cons across Essex.
The man knocked on the door of an 89 year-old woman living ioff Little Lullaway, Basildon, on April 24 but she refused him entry.
It follows a similar incident in Brentwood shortly after 8pm just 24 hours earlier. The same man is believed to have entered the flat of a 94 year-old woman and demanded money to prevent imminent flooding.
She gave him a two-figure sum of cash before he left saying he would return the next day to address the problem.

IN the early 1970s, the Essex band Dr Feelgood were hailed as the saviours of rock 'n' roll'. Forty years on, their former lead guitarist and songwriter Wilko Johnson, fhas published his autobiography 'Looking Back on Me' and on top of that the band's early records are also about to be released.
Back in 1977, Canvey Island R'n'B band Dr Feelgood were at he top of their game. Blues revivalists with short hair and even shorter songs, they stood out like a sore thumb when they started out in 1971, at the height of the prog rock era.

FULL details of the route the Olympic torch relay will take through Essex this summer have been announced. The street-by-street journey of the torch was revealed by organisers Locog.
The relay's first stop in the county will be in Colchester on Friday, 6 July at 07:28 BST, before it travels to 16 other locations over two days.
Among the landmarks it will visit are the Hadleigh Farm Olympic mountain bike course, the Basildon Sporting Village and Chelmsford Cathedral.

THE Olympic Games will be coming to Great Britain in July and millions of people will be glued to television screens hoping to see local athletes on the gold medal podium. But do you know how the Games started? Do you remember the Japanese gymnast who won a gold medal for his team despite competing with a broken kneecap? Or the sailor (pictured left) who was on his way to silver when he went off course to rescue someone he heard drowning? There are many stories, good and bad, and we have put together a selection of them as a taster of the Games. And don't forget we will be able tom see it first hand in August when the mountain biking comes to Hadleigh, Essex, for two days.