How do you know if you’re knocking on a bit in this fine county of ours? When you remember going down the water chutes at Fantaseas in Dartford? Or perhaps riding the Mary Rose at Margate’s Dreamland?

The reality is that when you start remembering the things you have done and experienced over a lifetime it can make you sound very ancient indeed to today’s young whippersnappers.

Recalling how every town’s high street used to be packed both with shops and shoppers – in a pre-Bluewater, pre-out-of-town developments era - will leave many youngsters looking bemused.

So read on and see how many of these you can recall - just be warned, terrifyingly, you don’t have to think back that far for some.

For example, do you remember how our trains were once all slam door stock? It allowed you the peculiar thrill of still having a chance of boarding a moving train if you were quick and steady enough on your feet. And when you came to disembarking, you had to pull the window down and reach outside to open the door. Odd.

It was only the 1990s when Whitstable was a sleepy little town whose distinctive claim to fame was its ten-pin bowling alley and the cheap frozen salmon you could buy from the warehouses by the harbour (and advertised from the roundabout on the old Thanet Way).

Driving through it, the most memorable restaurant was Giovanni’s – a distinctive Italian which seemed trapped in the 1970s. But there were no crowds. No boutique shops. No wine bars. Just competitively-priced second-hand junk shops. House prices were cheap and student digs were plentiful.

A bit further down the coast was Margate – where in the 1980s you could stroll from the packed car park behind Arlington House, weave between dozens of stalls selling hats and tat before emerging into the pleasure palace that was Dreamland. There you could enjoy the Shooting Star rollercoaster – which looped the loop – or the aforementioned Mary Rose ship which swung a full 360 degrees. In the evenings, folk queued to get into the Dreamland cinema next door.

It wasn’t all that long until, in the 1990s, the town was perhaps at its lowest ebb. Where the most memorable shop right on the seafront was a sex shop - looking out across its golden sands - and Dreamland had been reduced to a mere shadow of its former self – more a glorified fairground than theme park. It could not be more different today.

Then there was Folkestone where the Rotunda was once such a big draw – two big domed areas packed with the latest arcade machines and a host of rides during the summer to occupy the crowds. Over the years it steadily declined before today becoming, of all things, an upmarket housing development.

Tontine Street was a bit rough and ready, but did boast a very fine fish and chip shop.

You could then park up near the East Cliff Pavilion and watch the cross-Channel ferries come and go – mooring alongside the harbour arm – as you munched your lunch.

Ashford, when its ring road was all a mass-lane one-way collar around its town centre, used to have a thriving market on a Saturday – always packed - before the high-speed rail link cut a swathe through it and changed it forever. It even knocked down its cinema.

Talking of cinemas, we were lucky – and I appreciate I sound like a clichéd old codger here – if our picture houses had three screens. There was none of this multiplex business. And you had to queue up to get a ticket – no booking online in advance.

Happy days were spent doing just that in Tunbridge Wells before the old cinema at the top of Mount Pleasant Road closed and finally - many, many years later - demolished.

You could go and watch the greyhound racing in Canterbury and be hit by the smell of the old tanning industry around its ring road.

I can remember strolling around Dartford town centre and being amazed at the crowds when then-Football League hunting Maidstone United (who were groundsharing with the Darts at the time) were playing their games.

And anyone who experienced Fantaseas – the shortlived water park nearby – will struggle to forget it in a hurry. Let’s just say, health and safety wasn’t such a big thing back then.

Or, indeed, driving coastbound on the M20 when the road would end at Maidstone and you had to wind your way to Ashford on the A20 before the ‘missing link’ was finally built.

Not to mention, when driving through the Dartford Tunnel was a process you did in both directions – prior to the QEII Bridge’s construction – and, of course, those ruddy toll booths.

Things change and it’s only when you pause to reflect for a moment that you realise just how dramatically the county has evolved.

And if you’re a youngster reading this – trust me, one day you’ll be recalling equally as dated memories to your children.