“Where are we headed?” I ask Pye.

“Let’s go down the slip road to the beach! You can build up a good head of speed.”

“I know, we could go on the path down to the small bay? It might be faster.” Pye looks at me doubtfully. Culvercot’s beach is cut into two bays, where a low cliff juts out and divides the beach. The smaller bay has a smooth, tarmacked path leading down to it. Perfect for homemade go-karts, in fact.

Except in 1984, it isn’t yet tarmacked. We stop at the top and look down at the rough, pebbly surface. “That’s lethal, that is,” says Pye, and turns immediately to walk over the clifftop to the other bay.

The tide is higher than I’ve ever seen it, and the steel-grey waves are pounding the seawall and splashing over the promenade below.

What we call the slip road is a long and steep path with grass either side and a wide curve leading from the clifftop down to the beach, where today the sea is high enough to cover the sand. About halfway down the path, on the arc of the bend, it joins up with the grandly named ‘promenade’, which is really just the top of the seawall with two or three benches where old people go to sit.

So this, I think to myself, is the path that killed my dad. It’s an odd thing to think, I grant you, but that’s what is going through my mind, as well as a nervous calculation about what will happen next. Just then a weak shaft of sunlight pierces the thick cloud, which I take as a good omen, and I start to feel better and better about the whole day.

I’m going to do this, and I’m going to do it right.

We stand at the top, Pye and me, and plan out the ride. It’s pretty straightforward: a steep bit at the start, then into the curve, which will take a bit of braking and steering but not much, and then the gradient levels off a bit so that by the time you reach the beach you’re going a bit slower anyway and the sand will stop the wheels anyway.

“Who’s going to go first?” I ask.

“Not me. I’ve done it loads of times. It’s got to be you.”

So I sit on the cushion, one foot pushed against each front wheel to stop the kart from rolling forward, and it so wants to go. It was made for this. The wind is strong, and the waves are loud and the blood is pumping in my ears, so when I take my feet away I get a cold rush of air, which I gasp at as the kart picks up speed on the first steep part.

It’s a smooth ride, and fast! I’m applying the brake well before the curve, and tugging on the right-hand rope to turn the front axle, and my hair is blown by the speed and the salty wind as I go round the curve … “Ha haaaaa!”

I’m slowing down a bit now, and off to the left of the path I see it: the brick that Dad crashed into. It’s towards the side of the path, not the middle as he had said, but it’s there all right, and definitely dangerous if you hit it at full speed. By the side is a small, rusty supermarket trolley. It all fits. It’s just as Dad said.

Then I’m slowing down with a judder as the pram wheels hit the soft sand, bringing me to a stop. I leap out and pull The Lean Mean Green Machine out of the way of a grey wave that’s creeping up the beach, and start running back up to the top.

On the way I stop at the brick and throw it well out of the way, and wrench the trolley out of the sandy soil it’s half buried in, away from the path, and rejoin Pye, who opens his arms and shouts “Yaaaay!” before throwing them around me and squeezing really hard so that I’m gasping and laughing.

“How was that?” he says. He is hopping from one foot to the other with excitement.

“Pretty awesome, but man, it’s steep at the start. Don’t forget to brake!”

“I won’t.” Pye stops. He’s looking over my shoulder. “Is that who I think it is?”