For a young Dun Laoghaire lad in the 1960s, the world was an exciting place - especially for Peter Caviston. His father ran the Glasthule fish shop and greengrocers which was to become one of the best delicatessen/restaurants on the east coast. Peter delivered on his bicycle for Bob Smyth's greengrocers shop next door to Cavistons, which the family bought in 1989 to expand into the restaurant business. "I used to go down with my father to the Coal Harbour to meet the boats coming in and we'd carry the fish back in the boot of a car," says Peter. "Most of our catch comes from Castletownbere and the west these days."

The town centre is deserted now in the evenings with few places for young people to go for entertainment other than pubs - but when Peter Caviston was 16 there was plenty of entertainment. "The `in' place was Murray's record centre, opposite Relish's, where the Boomtown Rats and local group Grannies Intentions played in the basement. I was very young and out of my depth. I'd look in the window and love to get in. I went to school at Presentation College , Glasthule, with two of the Boomtown Rats."

"Everyone went to the Adelphi and the Pavilion cinemas. You got in for nine old pence if you crouched up small and made yourself look like a schoolboy. And the Top Hat ballroom - we called it `the lid' in those days - now they're building apartments there."

The fun was simple then, says Peter. "You'd get a boat and go out fishing for mackerel or anything that came up on a hook (you still can at weekends) and we fished along the back of the pier. We walked the pier a lot and all the kids went to the baths.

"There were some wonderful restaurants and hotels in the town, like Roger Lewis's very fine Creole restaurant on Adelaide Street. The Carney Arms hotel, Rosses, the Lismore and the Pierre were all on the seafront and the Royal Marine of course."

"Dun Laoghaire has changed, mostly for the better, but it's still a village at heart."