Betty Morriss started work as Basildon’s inaugural traffic warden on June 29, 1970. Traffic wardens had been around in the UK since the 1960s, when the first batch of uniformed parking enforcement officers marched onto the streets of Westminster. The first penalty charge ever issued in England was given to a doctor who was answering an emergency call to help a heart attack victim in a London hotel. He was eventually let off the £2 fine following a public outcry. We have rediscovered some snaps of Basildon and Southend’s wardens looking for illegally parked vehicles from the 1970s through to the 1990s.