While the London Resort stumbles into another year promising much yet delivering nothing, it is worth remembering that Kent once had, surely, one of the nation's premier theme parks.

Margate's Dreamland is, of course, up and running again today; there are rides, there are smiles and there is entertainment.

Perhaps it's just refocusing through my trusty pair of rose-tinted glasses, but it struggles - through no fault of its own, times are, after all, very different today - to hold a candle to years gone-by.

Every generation who entered its gates will have their own 'golden era' of the park - but it wrote itself into my personal formative history in 1984. Back during a period when it had dropped its Dreamland moniker in exchange for Bembom Brothers.

It was my first visit. A birthday treat. Joined by a couple of pals, the sun shone, the laughter rang out and the magic which the park once transfixed people with settled in my soul.

Even the walk from the car park to the entrance was an eye-opener. Like some sort of Moroccan souk, the path which linked the car park to the seafront were lined with traders selling classic seaside and day out trinkets. Kiss-me-quick hats, sticks of rocks and - as I seem to remember, some rather rude 'his or hers' coathangers - enticed the extraction of pocket money.

Entering into the park itself was like emerging in a pleasure palace. The landscape was pockmarked with enticing multicoloured domes or dramatic rides.

Every sense was stimulated - from the scent of salty chips to fluffy candyfloss to the almost visible squirts of adrenalin pumping out of the eye-balls of every young visitor - it was a case of where to go first? Head to the stalls where you could hook a duck? Dive into the arcades? Get an early hotdog in?

It was the rides and what seemed, to my younger self, to be creations which towered, glinted and blinked from every direction.

'Disney's saccharine brand was enough to make Dreamland, the theme park formerly known, temporarily, as Bembom Brothers, appear to have their beating at every level...'

The loop-the-loop of the Shooting Star, the sedate charms and views of the big wheel, the hold-on-for-dear-life speed of The Enterprise or the water-splattering thrill of the log flume; all open to those with a wristband strapped to them and the desire to enjoy every mechanical thrill ride Bembom Brothers could throw at them.

Granted, I was too scared to ride the majestic Mary Rose - a 'ship' which swung and fully looped as those strapped into its seats released screams and anything lose in their pockets on to the concrete floor below. But everything else filled me with delight.

It was intoxicating.

The early eighties was a time when the ultimate holiday seemed to be a mortgage-busting ticket to Florida and the Disney parks. But to me, as enticing as some of the rides across the pond seemed, Disney's saccharine brand was enough to make Dreamland, the theme park formerly known, temporarily, as Bembom Brothers, appear to have their beating at every level.

This was British charm, soaked in temperamental British sunshine and with good old British grit and grime thrown in. Health and safety had yet to be heralded as having "gone mad" and everyone there just seemed to be out for a fun day out.

By the time the day had ended I was exhausted and exhilarated.

Would I have felt the same if I visited that park today as a fully grown adult? Probably not. But then theme parks I've visited ever since have never quite captured the excitement you can only ever experience when you are the proverbial knee-high to a grasshopper.

Dreamland back in the day had a real buzz and offered something nowhere else in Kent could come close to. Granted, perhaps my parents were ripped off royally for any bit of fast food our hungry stomachs demanded, but the whole place seemed to be set up for enjoyment rather than the extraction of cash at every turn.

And, of course, when you're just 11 the price of a pint is neither here nor there.

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