In this week's Up Close in Maldon we talk to Lynne Raymond about the video she has made to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the birth of Edward Bright, the famous Fat Man of Maldon.

Lynne, who many will know from Ansell & Sons at 5, High Street – where her son Paul Raymond is now the Master Butcher – tells here of how her passion for local history grew from her astonishing discoveries about the past of the family business and how she believes a knowledge of the past is crucial to an understanding of the present.

This week saw the 300th anniversary of the birth of Maldon's famous fat man, Edward Bright – and now a new history video made by a local history enthusiast shows that the importance of Edward and his family to the town was much bigger than it might seem.

Lynne Raymond's painstaking research has peeled back the centuries to give anyone interested in Maldon and its history and development a fascinating glimpse of the town in the Eighteenth Century and the impact that Edward Bright and his descendants, including his son Edward (also known as 'Ted') had on it.

More than that Lynne, who will be known by many in Maldon as a familiar face at Ansell & Sons in the High Street, has shown something of the man Edward, born on 1 March, 1721, was.

"He may well have had some illness or problem that contributed to his weight problem," Lynne says, "but it wasn't all there was about him. It seems to me he was a good young man just trying to do the best in life that he could."

The video begins by glancing back through Edward's family and how he came to live in Maldon as an apprentice grocer before going on to own his own grocer's shop in the High Street and play an active and respected role in the town.

He went on to die at just 29 years of age, with the story of the incredible coffin and funeral detailed in Lynne's video. Through her detailed research, this determined local historian discovered that nine men fitted into Bright's waistcoat, not the seven as originally thought.

Lynne says: "I was so pleased that I was able to find that. It was really just though looking at all the documents and what I have found is there are always surprises when you start looking into things."

For Lynne, her passion began with her research into the history of the Ansell & Sons shop. Incredibly, she uncovered the strange twist of the family's long history of connection to the premises, unknown before she started. Her husband Derek's father, Sidney, came to live in Maldon as an orphan and took a weekend job at the shop, working with Leonard Ansell and his son Albert. He later came to take the shop over.

Lynne discovered an amazing fact that Sidney wasn't aware of – the people who first established a butchers shop on the site in 1796 were William and Sarah Raymond, Sidney's two times great grandparents.

Past work with respected Maldon historian John Smith, who has written much about the town, inspired her further.

Not wanting to write a book on her research into Edward Bright, Lynne hopes the video – which is 43 minutes long – will be enjoyed by lots of people who want to know more about Maldon and its past.

Perhaps they will take inspiration, too, from the passion Lynne has found for history.

"It's so important to know about her past because it's what led us to how we are today," Lynne says, "and whether it's family history or local history it's all there, just waiting to be explored."