As sometimes happens, just when you are about to leave, you get a few answers and things swim into focus. The gentleman in the Welcome office told us the meaning of the motto that surrounds the three legged emblem of the island and I've used it as a title for this blog. ( Mind you he had to google it). And it seems good for this Island whose vicissitudes have included murderous Vikings as well as masses of tourists and currently men and women in suits making money out of air and probably keeping the whole show on the road.
We'd packed up the car to go when the woman who services the flats arrived and I hailed her because I felt bad about her having to navigate the mess we'd left last time she came, including a difficult frying pan. As I explained, we hadn't realised we weren't looking after ourselves and we'd had to catapult out and move the car or get a fine. It turned out she was Manx. We got talking and I used the "safe" word. Was it really safe here? A shadow passed across her face and she said it used to be. It turned out her 22 year old son had tried to stop a fight outside a venue and had been held down by four Poles and had his jaw broken. It seems the Island, after all, has a dark underbelly like everywhere else. She also told us that the square we had been living in had not only housed enemy aliens - ("scoop em all up" Winston Churchill had said) but had been a POW camp for Germans after the war, and quite a few had stayed on after being released.
This odd fact linked in with a funny story our accountant friend from the steam train had told us. Apparently the picturesque King Williams School, where he had been a pupil, on one occasion was rented out to make a film about Colditz Castle. A big swastika was raised in the courtyard and Nazi guards patrolled everywhere. Unfortunately this coincided with the day prospective parents could visit the school "For some reason there have always been a lot of Germans wanting to send their kids to King Williams" our friend said, laughing. "I can't imagine what went through their minds" I wonder if the young Germans might have been descended from the POWs who so took to the place after their imprisonment.
Grant also came across a denial of the Manx cat being the product of Spina Bifida. "I had a Manx cat" the lady in the gift shop said " and there was certainly nothing wrong with him. But, you know, Manx cats have very developed back legs. Like rabbits. Well, go figure."
And on the topic of the raunchy and unnatural, G and I went to the Gaiety Theatre to see "an adult puppet musical, not for children because it contained "puppet nudity and sex" . It was called "Avenue Q" and emanated from New York, but was performed by the local theatre company with great verve and skill. The puppets were offshoots of the muppets.and were each handled by one or sometimes a pair of puppeteers who moved and sang with them like ventriloquists do. There was indeed a bit of puppet sex and the whole thing was about young puppets finding themselves and was in aid of the Island hospice. "By helping others you always help yourself" carolled the puppet chorus meaningfully.
The last thing we did before driving into the tranquil womb of the Steam Packet Car Ferry was to enter the park that was in the centre of Hutchison Square and we discovered it was dedicated to "the artists' camp" where one internee painted on newspaper with a toothbrush.until the camp captain, whom they preferred to call Camp Father, organised for brushes and other requirements. The present day Island art school had made commemorative tiles, one of which depicted a mock menu put together by an internee chef. The Jews apparently liked the kippers which they called yom kipurs.
The. Island world seems much richer, now that we are about to leave it and its motto about turbulence and survival seems to be spot on.
QUOCUNQUE JECERIS STABIT.
We'd packed up the car to go when the woman who services the flats arrived and I hailed her because I felt bad about her having to navigate the mess we'd left last time she came, including a difficult frying pan. As I explained, we hadn't realised we weren't looking after ourselves and we'd had to catapult out and move the car or get a fine. It turned out she was Manx. We got talking and I used the "safe" word. Was it really safe here? A shadow passed across her face and she said it used to be. It turned out her 22 year old son had tried to stop a fight outside a venue and had been held down by four Poles and had his jaw broken. It seems the Island, after all, has a dark underbelly like everywhere else. She also told us that the square we had been living in had not only housed enemy aliens - ("scoop em all up" Winston Churchill had said) but had been a POW camp for Germans after the war, and quite a few had stayed on after being released.
This odd fact linked in with a funny story our accountant friend from the steam train had told us. Apparently the picturesque King Williams School, where he had been a pupil, on one occasion was rented out to make a film about Colditz Castle. A big swastika was raised in the courtyard and Nazi guards patrolled everywhere. Unfortunately this coincided with the day prospective parents could visit the school "For some reason there have always been a lot of Germans wanting to send their kids to King Williams" our friend said, laughing. "I can't imagine what went through their minds" I wonder if the young Germans might have been descended from the POWs who so took to the place after their imprisonment.
Grant also came across a denial of the Manx cat being the product of Spina Bifida. "I had a Manx cat" the lady in the gift shop said " and there was certainly nothing wrong with him. But, you know, Manx cats have very developed back legs. Like rabbits. Well, go figure."
And on the topic of the raunchy and unnatural, G and I went to the Gaiety Theatre to see "an adult puppet musical, not for children because it contained "puppet nudity and sex" . It was called "Avenue Q" and emanated from New York, but was performed by the local theatre company with great verve and skill. The puppets were offshoots of the muppets.and were each handled by one or sometimes a pair of puppeteers who moved and sang with them like ventriloquists do. There was indeed a bit of puppet sex and the whole thing was about young puppets finding themselves and was in aid of the Island hospice. "By helping others you always help yourself" carolled the puppet chorus meaningfully.
The last thing we did before driving into the tranquil womb of the Steam Packet Car Ferry was to enter the park that was in the centre of Hutchison Square and we discovered it was dedicated to "the artists' camp" where one internee painted on newspaper with a toothbrush.until the camp captain, whom they preferred to call Camp Father, organised for brushes and other requirements. The present day Island art school had made commemorative tiles, one of which depicted a mock menu put together by an internee chef. The Jews apparently liked the kippers which they called yom kipurs.
The. Island world seems much richer, now that we are about to leave it and its motto about turbulence and survival seems to be spot on.
QUOCUNQUE JECERIS STABIT.
Do you remember, Julia and Sarah, the big tourist brochure of the Isle of Man that was at 33 ( or it may even have been at 81, though more likely the former , as 81 days were post war austerity years mostly)? Mum particularly wanted to visit it because it was where ‘Britain’s last wizard lived at Castletown. Though she said, ‘on the other hand, they have flogging there, which is bad’. I remember leafing through that colourful brochure with interest. I particularly liked the little trains that go around the island. Did you visit the Museum Of Witchcraft at Castletown?
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