Binns' Broken Biscuits

I realised I'd crossed some kind of line when I started reminiscing about the local grocers' shop where you could buy broken biscuits. I was very young, and you could still buy a halfpenny chew there too back in those days of plenty. I've been on a coach trip to the Isle of Man with my mum. We had taken advantage of a door to door service, hotel included, to go and see my godmother, my aunt, my mother's sister who lives there. My mum has been over a couple of times already in the last few months. I haven't been since 2008. There was a great crowd on the coach, couples, widows and widowers, mothers and daughters. I'm guessing I was the youngest and Stan celebrated his 92nd birthday while we were there. I wouldn't like to calculate the average age. As we got to know one another over our evening meals there were some amazing stories of recovery and courage. Unexpected illness,sudden loss of a partner. Some of the older couples had a great life, taking several trips a year with the coach company. Many were very well travelled as a result. Most were from Derbyshire, and one or two were from very close to home and I imagine we'll meet up again. In some ways it was very Alan Bennett, great material for a radio play, snippets of conversation, funny travellers' tales. I found myself on a personal journey through the past, revisiting places I'd loved on my trips to the island as a child and teenager. In my twenties I went over for the TT. In my thirties I took my own children. In my forties I made new friends there. In my fifties I have visited to enjoy family connections. I'd last stayed at the Palace Hotel for my cousin's wedding in 1973. I wore a lovely Afghan dress from 8th Day! I found the cottage in Castletown where we regularly stayed for the TT. The next door neighbour confirmed that it was owned by the same woman, wryly adding that it probably hadn't been touched since the seventies!

We visited Maughold Churchyard with its amazing collection of Celtic christian and Viking crosses. It used to be where I wanted my ashes scattered and was written into my will. I have changed it to somewhere more local now, but it's still a very special place for me.

I went to Port Jack, the little beach just below Douglas Head where my sister and I spent hours scrambling on the rocks and skimming slatey flat stones. There's more litter and graffiti now, but it still has presence.

There were memories at every turn, my great aunt and uncle in Port St Mary, my aunt who died a few years ago in Castletown. Lunch at Cosy Nook cafe on the beach in Port Erin. Fuchsia hedges and palm trees. Meeting the grand daughter of the Manx cat we have a photo of from our last visit to Cregneash. The farmer told me a bit more about Goblin. He was such a good mouser that the day before he died he had a mouse trapped under each front paw and a third one in his mouth. Supercat! It's a beautiful island, full of history and folk lore. As a child I was amazed by how much Manx people knew about their past. It inspired my own interest in folklore and local history. It's had its ups and downs. The tourism declined as the financial sector took over. Now that's in decline,places like Douglas have lost some of their identity. But the coastline and the mountains, the farming and the gulf stream climate, the presence of the past through its Viking heritage and archaeology make it a very special place. Magic is never far from the surface, whether it's the protective quartz rocks placed on boundary walls, or the presence of the little people at Fairy Bridge.