By The Editor
17th Jan 2021 | Local News

A ruthless invader equipped with armoured war machines pursues a beaten army and thousands of civilian refugees to a small coastal town. A motley collection of civilian boats of all shapes and sizes – "fishing smacks… steam launches from the Thames, yachts" - comes to their rescue. The Royal Navy fights a heroic battle to gain them time as they flee.
This sounds like Dunkirk in 1940, in which Maldon's "little ships" played no small part, but it's actually a description written in 1897 of an alien invasion, and the evacuation of civilians from Maldon and the Blackwater.