Nick bullock rides the twists and turns of a seas on spent hunting for new routes on the North Wales coast

Llanberis solidifies through the early morning drizzle. The Victoria Hotel  is on the right and the Snowdon Railway  Station with its deserted car park and wet  wooden benches is on the left. I drive a little more before turning toward the centre of town, past the pebbledash council estate, the litter strewn bus stop, the telephone box with a broken window. A youth, who looks about 16, maybe 17, walks along the wet pavement behind others. All of them wear black uniform trousers and uniform blazers with Snowdon Railway badges sewn to the chest pocket: seasonal, going nowhere jobs. They look like pictures of workers walking the cobbled streets and red-brick alleyways of 1960s Manchester.

The youth at the back of the group, his uniform hanging from a skinny frame, removes  a cigarette from his mouth. Smoke billows  around his young face. The youth reminds me of myself from the time I worked a dead-end, seasonal job, but also from a time when life was fresh and work was grown-up, and the world was big and there was so much time it didn’t matter if the work I was doing wasted a week, or a year, or four years. Life was a seascape, a disappearing ship on the horizon. Life was tomorrow, next month, next year – life was just another day away.