Stepping onto the windswept promenade, while at the same time holding tight to the hood of my coat against the force of the wind that threatened, at any moment, to snatch it from my head, I looked towards the old, stone, clock tower. Throughout my childhood it had always been a substantial landmark, close to Dover’s Western Dock; a stalwart from a simpler age.

My mind opened my book of memories, back to the time of my youth when I would spend whole days here, when the docks were a hive of industry; a place where ships came and went to unload their precious cargo. There were ships from around the world carrying goods from exotic lands, known only to sailors and students of geography, and ships whose plimsoll lines rose higher and higher as the skeletal cranes swung to and fro, lightening their heavy loads.

Now, the dock area had changed irrevocably. The cranes had long since succumbed to the searing heat of the cutter’s torch; the ships no longer came, and my world was a sadder place for it. But, at least the clock tower remained.

I gazed at the large black hands that had circled the moon-white face a million times, telling a million people it was time for tea, or that their all-important bus or train had been missed.

As I looked away, towards the vexed sea clawing up the pebbled beach, I saw them; two boys aged around eleven, dressed without a care for fashion as the 1950’s turned into the 1960’s, playing rough and tumble under a bright blue sky on a hot summer’s day. They wrestled as they tumbled down the steep bank of pebbles shaped by the tide. To them it was the side of a massive ice-covered mountain, or a huge hill thick with big trees and even bigger hungry bears, until they slid to a halt near the salty water’s edge.

Scrambling to their feet, pushing and shoving each other, they fought over a single pebble – one amongst thousands. The tallest boy won the scuffle, and hurling his hard-won “prize” at a rusty can that casually bobbed on the surface of the water, sank the mighty German battleship before the other boy had even loaded his gun.

A sudden spray of seawater stung my face and for an instant I looked away. When I looked back the boys were gone. It was as if they had never been there.