A POLICEMAN who endured 18 years of near constant heartburn is enjoying a new "lease of life" after a necklace of magnets was implanted in his stomach.

Russell Theobald, 39, from Maldon, had battled with the pain of gastric oesophageal reflux disorder (GORD) since he was 21.

His condition was so bad that the cells in his food pipe had been damaged by the constant exposure to acid, and he was in danger of contracting cancer.

Russell, who often had days off work because of the disorder, said: "I had, at times, felt that I would suffer with gastric reflux for the rest of my life and I couldn't bear the thought of it.

"I had some superficial ulceration but then my doctor told me there was a likelihood of cancer if it carried on.

"This operation has been so good for me and my family. It's completely changed my lifestyle."

During the revolutionary operation, which takes under an hour, a device called a LINX – a small, flexible band of magnets enclosed in titanium – is implanted around the sphincter above the stomach.

The magnetic attraction between the beads helps keep the weak oesophageal sphincter closed to prevent reflux and acid leaking into the oesophagus.

Russell's condition had been controlled for years by antacid drugs and later proton pump inhibitors, which are a common medicine prescribed for acid-reflux, but about three years ago it got much worse and he decided that he needed to act.

GORD sufferers typically would have a "Nissen fundoplication" in which the stomach is wrapped, around the lower end of the oesophagus and stitched in place, but he decided that it wasn't for him.

"The Nissen fundoplication sounded really brutal, so I was doing a lot of research on the internet to find an alternative," said Russell, who has been married to his wife Edith for 26 years and has three sons.

"I would have had the Nissen fundoplication but it would have been a last resort – it's irreversible and although it does seem to work just wasn't for me.

"One day I got a letter from my mum who lives in Austria. She'd found an article in a German-language magazine talking about LINX and sent it to me."

Russell immediately undertook extensive online research about LINX, and found out about getting the device fitted in the UK by surgeon Mr Majid Hashemi at the Weymouth Hospital.

"I was apprehensive at first but also excited," said Russell.

"My surgery was scheduled for late afternoon and I was up and enjoying breakfast the next morning. I had no reflux – nothing."

The procedure has ended Russell's gastric reflux torture and he can now enjoy the food he loves. He is back to full-time duties at work and is working out in the gym and rowing again.

"The procedure will last for a lifetime, with no follow-ups and it's completely reversible if it didn't work," said Russell.

"I can eat what I want and drink what I want now. I love pies and pasties and now I can enjoy them with no pain. Now when food is served I can tuck in and not worry about the consequences."

LINX has been the subject of a five-year pivotal clinical study assessing 100 GORD patients.

The results showed 91 per cent of patients were now medication-free; 92 per cent had significant improvement; 99 per cent eliminated daily sleep disruption due to heartburn; and 100 per cent eliminated severe regurgitation.

UP TO £25,000 will be invested in leisure facilities at Maldon's Promenade Park to bring more visitors to the town's biggest tourist attraction.

Maldon District Council has start to consider a number of suggestions by businesses hoping to provide new leisure facilities to the park, which had over 500,000 visitors last year.

The council wants to invest between £10,000 to £25,000 to help set up new ventures such as cycle and boat hire, beach huts and crazy golf, with a view to creating long-term, sustainable businesses.

Chairman of the friends of Promenade Park, Bob Wyness, 65, said: "This is great to see. The more leisure facilities that the visitors can use in the park then the better, and we welcome any improvements ready for the summer.

"We always work closely with the council to improve the park and any upgrade on the facilities is going in the right direction to pull more people into the prom which, in turn, means more custom for firms."

Conservative district councillor Mark Durham said: "I've been discussing with councillors for a long time how to improve the park and I'm delighted that new facilities could be made ready for the summer season.

"We are lucky to have such a good park in the centre of the town. Last year was a bumper one in terms of visitors and we would love to see an improvement on that."

Already the authority has applied for planning permission for eight new beach huts, which could be available for hire.

Independent councillor for Maldon West, Mark Heard, added: "The park itself is Maldon's biggest tourist attraction, thousands of people from Maldon and out of town come to use the park.

"Families flock there and we would love to encourage anything that improves facilities."

Maldon District Council this week asked residents to respond to a 15-question survey to find out what new facilities users would like to see in the park, which can be completed online at www.maldon.gov.uk/surveys/prom.

It will run until Tuesday, September 30.

In recent years, Promenade Park has undergone an extensive makeover with the saltwater lake being drained and replaced with an ornamental lake with fountains and swans.

There is a new children's play area which includes a galleon, an aerial runway and a children's water splash park.

It also has a skateboard park and BMX track with a number of takeaway food kiosks.

A Maldon District Council spokesman said:

"From the expressions of interest which we have received we hope to be able to select a business partner or partners to take these projects forward.

"It is hoped that we may be in a position to see some of these new facilities for the summer."

And in his budget speech in February, the leader of the council Bob Boyce committed to starting a three-year project to restore the Great War avenue of trees in Promenade Park.

Deputy mayor for Maldon councillor Stephen Nunn said: "We are very fortunate to have such a wonderful park here since 1895 and anything that can make the park more enjoyable for the thousands that use it is a good thing."

26/4 1255 #Chelmsford assisting @EssexPoliceUK with a search after 3 burglars were disturbed in Melbourne. Did you see anything suspicious?

— NPAS_Boreham (@NPAS_Boreham) April 27, 2014

A HOARDER who says he is not even a "cinema-lover" has rescued and restored a 1920s-style theatre sign after his son salvag ed it from a skip.

Russell Castleton, 73, of Chelmsford, who owns hundreds of old electric cables, stamps and coins, now proudly boasts the result of his latest project.

After six months of dedication, the grandfather has polished-up the six-foot high by 14-inch wide sign, which once graced the entrance to the old Pavilion Theatre in Duke Street.

The single-screen cinema opened in the 1920s before it was closed in 1998, later making way for a laser quest and then Zeus nightclub, before it was demolished for flats.

The retired train driver, who lived with family in Rainsford Avenue before moving to Spalding Avenue, said: "I did it for the history of Chelmsford and the city's Chelmsfordians.

"I didn't know until recently that the old building had been abolished and replaced with flats – it's like it never existed.

The Lowestoft-born craftsman, who says he was never one for going to the cinema, says he does not know whether he has the energy to take on another project.

"I've made a reasonably good job of it I think taking into consideration my age – and certainly considering how heavy it is to lift – it weighs about three stone."

Mr Castleton, who worked on trains for about 40 years, restored the sign spending just £10 on timber and adhesive. His wife Iris, 80, said: "He has done a very good job considering his health but I took the mickey out of him doing it."

Iris added: "We moved here six years ago and there is nothing but railway books on a great big unit – it's six feet wide, three foot deep with a huge glass cabinet of ornaments on top.

"He is a bit of a hoarder and he was a muddler when I met him – but he has been a brick to me because he has looked after me."

The Pavilion Theatre was built in the 1920s before it was bombed in World War Two.

VILLAGERS near the A12 say their lives have been made a misery because the council has failed to fix a drainage problem that causes the main road to flood for months at a time.

Residents say Terling Hall Road has flooded under a road bridge for at least 20 years, but despite regular complaints to the highways department nothing has been done.

County council engineers last drained the road on February 21 after heavy rainfall, but it also flooded in October and stayed waterlogged for four months.

Canmpaigners now fear the flooding will return whenever wet weather hits.

"Every six months for the last ten years I've reported this to the council and each time it fobs us off with excuses, like it's looking at long-term solutions, but still nothing has been done," said freelance French teacher Majella Jefferies, who lives in Terling, a village near Hatfield Peverel.

"I even got an e-mail from Cllr Rodney Bass, the cabinet member for highways, asking me to be more patient.

"We've been waiting for ten years, how more patient can we be? The council just act like we're hassling them."

She moved to the street ten years ago and says there was a problem with flooding from blocked drains even before her arrival, with one neighbour living in the area for 20 years.

"We moved here to be close to the A12 as both my husband and I need to get around for our jobs, as he runs an electrical business, but when the road is flooded we have to go on a huge 12-mile detour through Terling and Hatfield Peverel that adds extra time onto every journey.

"The water takes two or three days to clear away, then within a week it would come back again.

"It's a waste of public money. The council keeps sending out engineers to keep clearing it instead of just fixing the problem. It needs a permanent solution.

"We're looking at three options – a whole new drainage system was discussed but a bit of the land is part owned by Network Rail, so nothing really happened.

"More urgency needs to put on the matter, all of us have been affected for so long. I'm really concerned because if an ambulance needed to come through, there are a lot of elderly people down this road and it could have been a tragedy."

Nicola Lilley and her husband Tom work for Royal Mail in Boreham and moved to Terling Hall Road in December.

"The flooding has affected us badly and has a big impact on our daily lives," said Nicola.

"If that bridge isn't open we have to go on an extra 40-minute round trip to get to work or take our son to school.

"My son Ben goes to St John Payne School so he gets the bus from the main road and so he couldn't get to school for a few days in January.

"We've not had any feedback from the council, my husband's mobile phone bill was over £30 in just calls to the council to report the problem over and over again.

"The council has only made a temporary fix. We're concerned that the problem will come back as soon as the water table starts rising again."

THE county's highways boss Rodney Bass posed for pictures alongside council workers when the water was drained away in February after a deluge of rain.

The images were circulated to the local press as a good news story of the county council's work maintaining the highways.

But residents say the council is wasting taxpayers' money by simply draining the road, rather than trying to solve the problem of why it floods in the first place and claim they are not being taken seriously.

At the time, Cllr Bass watched a water recycling jetting lorry which the council say cleaned over 400m of pipework running from the road to the River Ter in Terling Hall Road, Hatfield Peverel.

Councillor Bass said in the press release: "Essex County Council is investing sensibly to make sure that flooding and other problems brought about by the ongoing severe weather are dealt with quickly and efficiently."

Now a council spokesperson says an investigation has revealed the problem is down to an old collapsed culvert and that a solution is of high priority.

"As an interim measure, whilst investigations continue, Essex Highways and their supply chain partners have been removing the water from the site by tanker every two days to avoid closing the road on a permanent basis and until a longer-term solution is found," the spokesman said.

"Over the last week the amount of water running off the adjacent land has slowed significantly and pumping operations have not been necessary.

"This site is a high priority and a number of longer-term solutions are currently under investigation.

"Investigations of the site dictate that whichever solution is favoured will mean that a new drainage system will have to be installed.

"This will need careful design due to the proximity to the mainline railway line/bridge and also because the land on both sides of the railway bridge rises away from the site.

"A solution to this local concern is of the highest urgency for the county council."

AN ESSEX chef has the nation's footballing hopes in his hands as he begins his preparations to feed England stars such as Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard.

As the saying goes: "An army marches on its stomach", but after two European Championships and one World Cup, Tim De'Ath of Great Baddow is an old hand when it comes to meeting the strict dietary requirements of professional athletes.

The 46-year-old's first international tournament was the 2004 European Championship in Portugal, before he went to South Africa for the World Cup in 2010, and then Ukraine and Poland in 2012 for the Euros again.

And he has already visited Brazil twice in preparation for this summer's tournament in June when England will bid to end their 48-year wait since they lifted the famous trophy for the only time in 1966.

"I mainly work in a supervisory role, managing the catering staff who already work at the locations the team is visiting," said Mr De'Ath, who was born in Hornchurch but has lived in Chelmsford for 30 years.

"So I fly out to the country hosting the tournament months before the team do to check the base camp and all the hotels the team visits around the country.

"The stadiums, the hotels and all the camps the team are going to use are first-class.

"The players get fed a lot of protein, there's lots of different stations for pasta, chicken, anything they want that's nutritional, we make it for them.

"It's not like the old days with Alan Shearer's chicken and beans before a match.

"Everything they eat is calculated and worked out by dieticians and sport scientists to a precise level," added Mr De'Ath, although he insists the players do not have any strange cravings.

Tucked away beneath the old Chelmsford police station, Mr De'Ath's new bar and restaurant, 59 New Street, is an underground cavern of celebrity memorabilia.

Previously known as the Hot House, the premises reopened six months ago after an extensive renovation.

He has worked with some of Hollywood's most celebrated stars in a film industry catering career spanning 18 years. The restaurant is adorned with framed pictures of sports and screen stars posing with the chef on the sets of some of the most popular movies of all time.

A signed Bruce Willis picture from Armageddon, and Mr De'Ath pictured with Anthony Hopkins shortly before winning an Oscar for Silence Of The Lambs, Wesley Snipes in Blade, Natalie Portman in the recent Star Wars films, Leonardo Di Caprio, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Liam Neeson, Joaquin Phoenix, Tom Cruise and Samuel L Jackson.

"I just fell into that line of work after working for a catering company on a film set, then a year later I set up my own company," he said.

On some sets he would only cater for one actor and so had to get to know their specific nutritional needs inside out.

"Wesley Snipes is the most in-shape person I've ever worked with," he told the Chronicle.

He then applied his expertise to sport when he became head chef for West Ham United FC.

The club's manager at the time was Gianfranco Zola and his friendship with the then England boss and Italian compatriot Fabio Capello meant Mr De'Ath was recruited by the England national team, where he looked after the dietary requirements of stars such as David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and Rio Ferdinand. Some of his current Hammers colleagues have invested in 59 New Street and often bring their friends and families to the restaurant on Sundays.

Striker Andy Carroll, captain Kevin Nolan, Joe Cole, Mark Noble, James Collins and Joey O'Brien all have a stake in the business.

"They're all real foodies and enjoy coming in," he said. "Kevin Nolan sometimes brings his whole family of around 20 people down."

This is the first time Mr De'Ath has opened a restaurant on his own and has chosen Chelmsford as it is near his Great Baddow home.

"I wanted to open a restaurant and it had to be near where I live, and there aren't many independent restaurants in Chelmsford, it's mainly all chains and the town lacks individual, quality places.

"Many of the players wanted to get behind the idea of expanding this concept of highly nutritional food to a wider audience."