Not everyone thinks that a new decade starts with a year ending ten, twenty etc. It's often argued that a year ending with a zero is actually the final year of a decade, which means that 2021 would be the first year of the Twenties.

Either way, it would be nice to think that the new year is a proper fresh start. Sadly, in many respects the first few months look likely to give us more of what we've got far too used to already. As winter turns into spring, then we can hopefully look forward to recovering something of the life we lost.

Looking back to the history of our town a hundred years ago we see more similarities than we might expect.

In 1921 the scars were still fresh from the carnage of World War I. From 1918 to 1920, four waves of the Spanish Flu (H1N1) virus had swept the world, taking yet more lives. At the same time a social revolution was happening: in 1918, the majority of women had been given the vote, plus the rest of the men who had not previously met the property qualification.

As the new year dawned, there would have been many whose grief was still raw. 248 from Maldon died in the Great War, and the slow process of finding and reburying their bodies continued for some years after the War (and indeed continues to this day). On 8th May 1921 the Maldon Memorial Cross at All Saints was unveiled, giving local people a focus for their grief and remembrance.

First observed in the United States amongst soldiers, the Spanish Flu (so called because it was the uncensored Spanish papers that most widely reported it during the war) swept the globe in four waves, killing 228,000 people in the U.K. Unusually, this virus was most lethal in infants and young adults, making it particularly devastating after the loss of so many young people in the war. Older people, who may have gained some immunity from a milder epidemic of "Russian Flu" in 1889-1890, were largely untouched.

The control measures – masks, shop closures, social distancing, quarantine and disinfectant – were strikingly similar to current practice, but the absence of vaccines and the prevalence of unsanitary crowded conditions in urban areas and military camps made it much more difficult to control.

In 2020, the nation suddenly woke up to the significance of the "key worker". We realised that without people to deliver things, clean things, take our rubbish away, care for the vulnerable and maintain essential services we were helpless. At the same time we learned to appreciate how these people were putting themselves in the way of a dangerous disease, while taking home lower than average wages.

In 1914-18 a similar revelation had taken place regarding the role of women. Suddenly women, who had either been given pitiful wages or discouraged from working at all, were deemed essential for the war effort, and given skilled work in factories producing weapons and ammunition. E.H. Bentall switched a lot of its output to producing shell cases, and special pneumatic hoists were introduced to enable female workers to shift heavier weights.

As soon as the men came home from the war, the women were sacked, or had their wages reduced. But they were given one "reward": the Representation of the People Act in 1918 gave the vote to women aged over 30.

In the 1920s women became more and more reluctant to hide behind men, and the "Flapper" generation emerged with their short skirts, cigarettes and general sassiness – as portrayed in Peaky Blinders.

One thing is for certain: in the last century the experiences of war and then a pandemic meant that society and community was never the same again. It remains to be seen how our community will change in the decade to come.