Three JCB's doing the demolition dance on the final remains of "Barnacles," the Welcome Break in the middle of the Eastern Docks. Now just served by the one by Berth 2 and the new one at Berth 9. When I think of the countless hours I used to spend sitting in there in the early hours of the morning wearily nursing a coffee waiting for the "Stena Invicta" to arrive. There used to be a childrens ride in there which would cough into life and make a groaning noise every couple of minutes throughout the night, echoing across the deserted tables.
There is always something being pulled down or resurfaced inside the docks. I remember walking across the park behind two Sealink crewmembers some time after the P&O strike ended in 1988, when they had sacked all their ratings and replaced them with "scabs," with all the lasting ill-feeling which that occasioned. There was a similar large area of the surface torn up and and one of the crewmembers said to the other "what's all that, then?" To which the other grunted "It's a mass burial ground for P&O scabs!"
