Maldon Nub News aims to be supportive to EVERY element of the community from business and shops to people and charities and clubs and sports organisations.

Everyone is finding it tough at the moment and is desperate to get back to normal.

We will be profiling some of these local businesses and groups regularly over coming weeks in a feature called UP CLOSE IN MALDON in the hope that we can be a supportive springboard for a full return to business as usual.

We begin this week with Maldon's Mayor, Abdul Hafiz, known in the town as Jhual, and proprietor of Maldon Tandoori in High Street, Maldon. During an in-depth Q and A session he reveals why he set up his business in Maldon as well as his affection for the community and his hopes for the town as it emerges from the current crisis.

THERE cannot be many years more difficult than this in which to become Maldon's 211th Mayor. Yet Addul Hafiz, known to many as Jhual, told Maldon Nub News that there are no words to describe just how proud he is to have taken up the chains of office – and to be here to serve the people of the town he believes is the friendliest in the country.

"There are just no words in the Oxford dictionary to explain it," he says, "I am part of this town and it is part of me."

"One thing I noticed here from the start is that people make the time to talk to you. They don't just rush past – they stop and chat, ask you how you are, how things are going and they care.

"It makes me so proud to be able to make a difference to people's lives. If anyone needs my help, they can come to me and if I cannot help them myself, I will show them who can."

Jhual has been in business in Maldon for nearly 31 years

Famed in the town as proprietor of Maldon Tandoori, in the High Street, Jhual has a history with Maldon that dates back to 1987.

He joined the family's restaurant business in 1989 - almost 31 years ago. Previously, the family had run restaurants in several other towns around the country. None of them, he insists, compare well with this one.

In 2005, he was elected to Maldon Town Council, having been encouraged into politics by Maldon MP John Whittingdale, a long-term friend.

He says: "I am a Conservative nationally – but one of the reasons I wanted to be on the town council, rather than a district councillor, was that there my role is not really about party politics. It is about representing the people I serve. On the town council I am there to listen to and serve the people and I have found that all the councillors work together to do that."

Business and family life in Maldon: the town will win through because "independent businesses are used to fighting"

Jhual believes his children have benefitted from an excellent education here, with his 20-year-old son now studying for a degree in Computer Science at Royal Holloway College and his daughter, 18, just about to head off to Glasgow University to study Pharmacology.

It has been a happy place for him and wife, now Mayoress Shamema Begum, to raise their family and run a business, which has thrived and grown over the years.

He is the first Muslim Mayor of Maldon and also President of Maldon Islamic Cultural Association, which runs Maldon Mosque in Church Street. Opening the mosque involved a renovation of the run-down Labour Hall.

In the pandemic crisis, 18 volunteers from the mosque worked tirelessly to bring help to around 250 local people in need.

It has been noticed by many that Maldon Tandoori is not yet open again. Jhual tells how he has put off re-opening just yet over fears for his staff because of the increased threat Covid-19 appears to pose to people from ethnic minority backgrounds.

"Most of them have worked for me for many years," he says, "and I worry about them like family. They are all like family to me."

However, he firmly believes that Maldon's High Street will pull through these unprecedented times.

As soon as the shops in the High Street started to re-open, the Mayor was on hand with 1,000 free masks for shoppers – and he says he has high hopes for the future of the town's businesses, especially with the high number of independent shops that Maldon is well known for.

"The independents are used to fighting," he says, "because things are always hard for them. I know they will win though."