WELDER who continued to work throughout his battle with lung disease has died aged 78.

Melvyn Bushnell, of Eastwood Road, Rayleigh, founded Bush Welding and Engineering in 1969 and was planning to celebrate 61 years since meeting wife Audrey on New Year’s Eve before he succumbed to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

He had been suffering from the disease for about four years and, although it had taken a turn for the worse in the last year of his life, Mr Bushnell continued to come into work until six months before his death.

Son Steven, who had been working with his father since he was 17, took over the business about five years ago.

Among the notable clients of the firm at the Grainger Road Industrial Estate, in Southend, were Rossi’s, the Kursaal, Ford Motors in Dagenham, Adventure Island when it was still known as Peter Pan’s playground and the Bull in Hockley – where Mr Bushnell made a cover for the pub’s well.

In 1975, he made a maypole for his children’s school, Fairways, in Leigh.

Mr Bushnell’s early years were spent in Islington, London, but he moved to Southend when he was 11, meeting Westcliff girl Audrey six years later on New Year’s Eve 1953, at the Welcome School of Dance.

They married in 1957 at Crowstone Congregational Church and had four children: Steven, 56, Wendy, 53, Tony, 51 and Darren, 46, living at York Road, Southend, before moving to Bohemia Chase, Leigh, for 36 years and Eastwood Road, Rayleigh, for the past 20 years.

Mr Bushnell was a Freemason for 25 years, but outside of that he gave all his time to work.

His widow, Audrey, said: “Melvyn was still working even up to this summer just gone to try to do little jobs as best he could, so he never really retired. He loved it. It was his life and his baby.”

Melvyn Bushnell died on December 6.