WHISPERING SMITH: Stronghold of memories no bulldozer can destroy

FORT DEFIANCE would be a good name for the ruins of the Napoleonic fort on the west bank of the River Arun.

I have a vague schoolboy recollection of tipper lorries, I think they belonged to Mr Page, loaded with broken bricks and shattered concrete, dustily roaring away from the ruins of the old fort and, together with my mates bemoaning the part-destruction of one of our favourite playgrounds.

Unsafe, they claimed, dangerous they said, not too sure who ‘they’ were back in the day. I don’t recall anyone ever being hurt there and I doubt that such destruction of an important historical site on so flimsy a ground would, in these more enlightened times, be tolerated.