Sheppey ended up being sucked into the world of the Whitstable Biennale.

The nine-day contemporary arts festival across the water and celebrating its 10th anniversary decided to twin with the Island by chartering Thames barge Edith May to sail between Queenborough and the mainland.

Community groups were invited to perform on board and to give displays at either end of the voyage.

Sheppey's Big Fish Arts group was asked to become part of the festival fringe but fell foul of the ship's health and safety regulations.

Founder Chris Reed conceded: "With only 12 people allowed on the barge at any one time, and with five performers, it didn't leave an awful lot of room for the audience."

The barge, hosting artist Ben Judd's creation The Push and The Pull, ended up festooned with fairy lanterns below decks and with members of the festival crew emitting strange noises during the voyage.

Chris's team ended up staging a display in Queenborough's seafront Elephant Park based on their latest project Rediscovering The Lost Communities of Sheppey, financed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Chris said: "Sheppey has lost many communities over the years.

"There are the houses, pub and church which have fallen over the cliffs at Minster, Eastchurch and Warden.

"The hamlet of Elmley, complete with school and Turkey cement works at Windmill Creek has been abandoned and is now a ghost town.

"And West Minster was razed to the ground by council planners and never replaced. It was so sad. It was a lovely community."

She and companion Jo Eden told the tales dressed head to toe in black to mourn the passing of the communities.

Using old photographs and memories from former residents they pieced together information about what it was like living in those locations. One who was brought up in West Minster was Daf Charman who still remembered coming face-to-face with a big black dog in Montague Road, even though she is now 80.

Also taking part was the Oast House Community Choir from Rainham and the Rumour Writers from Sheerness.

This year’s Whitstable Biennale theme was Afterwardsness, based on a poem by Mimi Khalvati.

It explored loss, trauma and the concept of ‘afterwardness’, a term originally coined by Sigmund Freud to describe the belated understanding of events that comes with the passing of time, through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy from Aleppo.