I was brought up on the Island of Sheppy. First we lived just outside Minster and then when I was around 10 years old we moved to Sheerness.

The Island consists of a large lump of clay in the Thames Estuary just past where the River Medway joins it. When England started to have a Navy a dockyard and fort was set up at Bluetown. Very soon the numbers of people working there became significant and Bluetown and Sheerness supported the docks in one way or another. The docks were, and still are, the deepest in the country - a factor used when submarine testing during the second world war. Miniature submarines especially were developed and tested there.

Bluetown was a haphazard mixture of wooden build buildings that were directly outside of the docks walls. There were many places of pleasure supporting the docks, especially taverns and inns. There was a mission, hairdressers, ships chandlers, and probably any other business that could make money out of the ships and their crews. Boarding houses offered bunk beds in shared rooms or single rooms for officers. It was called Bluetown because most of the buildings were painted blue. Navy blue. A few minutes up the road was Sheerness. This was the more genteel area of better brick houses. A small town with a proper high street. The town did not just have the dockyard to support it. There was fishing and pottery. By Victorian times it had also become a place for people from London to holiday. The holiday trade became the main source of income for islanders from then up until the second world war. After the war wealthier people started to holiday abroad and, as package holidays became popular so did the holiday trade lessen.

There was a large incidence of mental problems among the population on the Island. The causes were past inbreeding and 'social diseases' like those found near every dockyard. By the time I moved to Sheerness we, children, were aware of virtually every local who had such problems, especially those who may be a danger to us. These people were looked after by the community and even policed by the community. This meant that children were a lot safer than people feel they are today. One man, for example, had never grown up mentally and still thought of himself as a little boy. He went to school, in a schoolboy clothes, especially made for him by a local tailor, up until he was fifty when he died. He played childrens games and no one thought it unusual.

The four pictures of places on the island shown here each have their own set of memories attached. Clicking on them will lead to these.