INTRODUCTION by John S Dobson

To the best of my ability this is a social history of a period in the life of a unique Island, a nostalgic account of a new vanished way of life.

Foulness is like no other island in the United Kingdom, yet it is only approximately 50 miles from London. For centuries it was isolated from the mainland by rivers and the North Sea. Apart from a brief period after construction of the road and bridge to the mainland, before the Ministry of Defence restricted entry to the public, the isolation has remained. The island remains a mystery to most people.

I have often thought that someone should attempt to record the way of life on the island from 1914 to 1939, an eventful era in its history, in many ways truly remarkable. With many of my contemporaries gone, it has become a matter of urgency to put down the memories that would otherwise be lost forever.

I refer to a period of immense change, during a steady decline in the island’s population, which today leaves it without a school, no resident parson, district nurse or village policeman. The Government agent no longer resides there. These people were the very life blood of village life.

As a member of the Dobson family, who arrived on the island in 1841, I feel privileged to have lived my first twenty-five years there from 1941. The memories come flooding back.