VE Day celebrations at Brightlingsea Museum on Bank Holiday Monday were halted when a very special visitor arrived – Winston Churchill.

The wartime PM – played by local resident Jon Wood, complete with trademark cigar and V for Victory salute – arrived in an open-topped Bentley to be greeted by Town Mayor John Carr and Iain Werngren, Deputy of the Cinque Port Liberty of Brightlingsea.

The ‘PM’ then deliver the famous speech given by the real Churchill on May 8, 1945, which began: “My dear friends, this is your hour. This is not victory of a party or of any class. It’s a victory of the great British nation as a whole.”

The visit followed a street party – complete with spam sandwiches – for around 25 children on the forecourt of the museum, which was running a special Wartime Brightlingsea exhibition, which included a display of photographs of local men and women who served during the war, pictured below.