Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Doris Maddrell
MANX HERITAGE FOUNDATION ORAL HISTORY PROJECT ORAL HISTORY TRANSCRIPT
‘TIME TO REMEMBER’
Interviewee: Mrs Doris Maddrell
Date of birth: 28th July 1912
Place of birth:
Interviewer: John Rimmington
Recorded by: John Rimmington
Date recorded: 25th June 1999
Topic(s): Living in Cregneash Village Local herbs and flowers Courting and marriage Harry Kelly Pooyl Veeil [sp ???] Honey Pool WWII [Cronk] Meayll and fairy superstitions Ned-Beg-Hon-Ruy The Spar Quarry The Brig Lily and salvaged ring Easter traditions Ling fishing Light-keeper Mr Coombe Reading poetry Bridie Lowey’s shop and the Sound Cafe Hidden memorial stone at Kione ny Gerrag
Doris Maddrell - Mrs M John Rimmington - JR
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Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Doris Maddrell
JR Right, if you could just tell me first of all your age and then when you actually lived in Cregneash.
Mrs M Yes, well, you see I was born in July 28th 1912 and that wasn’t yesterday and my sister was born in 1911, but she was just on two years older than me and then of course later on I had a brother and he was five years younger than me so of course he was the jewel in the crown and he’s still alive and he was born in 1917 and he’s out, he’s been out in America since 1952 but both his children, one was born in England and one was born in the Isle of Man. He married a nurse and, but we had a wonderful life in Cregneash.
JR Which house did you live in when you were a child?
Mrs M Well it was a thatched cottage and it was just up from Harry Kelly’s – today it’s the café there, Creg-y-shee [sp ???]. My great-uncle that I told you about, he built it up and it cost £300 to McArd's to build it in 19 … I think it was 1934.
JR When they put the top on?
Mrs M Yes, they took the thatch off and built it up and of course before that we hadn’t a bathroom or, it was in, after the war that we got running water. At the back of our house we had a big tank, that was only when the house was built up and then we, later on of course when the sewerage and the water and it was Irishmen that came.
JR Right, is that the Second World War?
Mrs M Yes, and there were some very nice Irishmen, this was when the war was over and I said one day to one of the fellows sometimes they would come if they got their hands cut or anything to see would I bandage them or something and there was one fellow and he seemed to be the speaker and he came one day and he said to me, ‘I wonder would you be good enough to dress this fellow’s ...’ he named him, ‘his hand?’ and I said, ‘what’s happened?’ Well they were digging and there was a slate and it cut his hand right along and when he opened it oh my hat, so I said to him you know something about, ‘How did you do it?’ but the other fellow answered and I said, ‘what’s the matter with him?’ but he only had the Gaelic. He didn’t know what I said but he smiled and I got a dish and you know Dettol and then I got cotton wool and I bandaged it up and I said, ‘Go down and get it to the doctor and get it stitched,’ because it was open so and of course well like he told 2
Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Doris Maddrell
the other fellow and anyway they were there and I went to him, ‘how do you get away with National Service in this country – you know in the Island and Britain? ‘Oh,’ he said, he went like this, he said, ‘as long as we’re out before two years!’ – did you know that?
JR No.
Mrs M So they disappeared and then they came back again you see, so as long as they were out of the country in two years and I thought to myself well you might not be able to speak the language but boy have you got it under your hat you know. But that was the years but we were
JR So you moved, I know you left Cregneash before, I think you told me, was it 1922. So then did you move back up there before you got married?
Mrs M Oh aye, as soon as my great-uncle came home from sea because you see he would come home and perhaps stay weeks and weeks and then he would say, ‘Well I’ll look for another ship,’ – he was foreign sailing you see. He was on the Cork Line a lot and they traded to Antwerp and places like that and, but, and then of course I had to go back home to Port St. Mary. Well I never settled, I never settled in Port St. Mary because all my friends were up there and you know it’s, I suppose I was so used to them, so used to the way of life up there because when you are, you know sort of growing up and realise that, because I had, there was one boy that was the same age as me, Jack Gawne, this girl Mrs Corlett’s brother, he’s still alive but not well and lives in Douglas, and he was like me, he liked nature and we, both Jack and I, were children, was fleet of foot we could run like hares and we knew when the birds would arrive and there was one bird, Jack would say to me, ‘You know the flying billy goat has arrived.’ So of course my great-uncle who was pretty smart and he said to us, ‘If you go up the Chasm Hill you’ll hear the birds coming over from the reeces [sp ???]’ You know that’s the marshy and flat places, you know, between Cregneash and the Sound and of course we never told the others you see. But Jack and I would be like hares up the Chasm Hill and we would perhaps, two or three nights we wouldn’t hear it, but it was after tea when this bird seemed to come about then you’d hear it and it was only a few month ago I was watching a bird programme and I thought, good Lord, is that what’s the name of that bird, it was Nightjar, and I never knew its name, have you ever heard it?
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JR I don’t think so, or not that I know of.
Mrs M It makes a sound with its wings and it’s just like a goat, you know, just like a goat crying and of course we naturally, we knew the flowers that grew in the meadows, in the reeces [sp ???], as we called them, you know, the marsh marigolds and lady smock and the wild orchids and
JR There’s not many children know these flowers now.
Mrs M And the forget-me-nots, they don’t, no, and I … Alex took me out last year it was, oh and that was another thing that we always made sure we looked for was Luss ma chulg [sp ???], it’s a herb, a bright yellow, little flower like the size of a, oh, a forget-me-not flower, bright yellow with very small leaves but it grows quite tall, in the heather and the gorse you find it.
JR Has it got five petals?
Mrs M It probably has, I’ve hunted for it since and I’ve never found it since and, I mean we used to bring it home and then my mother and the other old people in the village would hang it up to dry and they’d make a sort of a herb tea of the leaves and there was you know we weren’t allowed out on Spanish Head, we weren’t allowed, but that didn’t mean to say we didn’t go and there was another herb and it’s called Camchreest [sp ???] – now I don’t know the name of it, in Manx, it’s a low lying little plant, it’s called, and I said to Harry Kelly once, ‘What’s the meaning of Camchreest [sp ???] ? and he said, ‘the blood of Christ,’ and it was a herb for cleansing the blood. You see these things have gone now you see, ‘cos children they don’t, they don’t. Well, I learned an awful lot from listening, I was a good listener, I was a good talker, but I used to go in every house in Cregneash and it was never said, nobody ever said to me you know, ‘You’re a busy-body,’ sort of thing, nobody ever said but I was always welcome and I always either got a piece of bonnag or a piece of potato cake or something; it’s a wonder I wasn’t fat, but hadn’t time to grow fat you see.
JR So when did you get married, that’s when you moved back full time was it?
Mrs M Yes, Alec and I got married in December 18th 1939 ...
JR Right. 4
Manx Heritage Foundation: TIME TO REMEMBER: Doris Maddrell
Mrs M ... and I said to Alec, I said, ‘The first time I walked out with you within a crowd was coming.’ You see, we went to the Howe Chapel Sunday School and then of course we had a Cregneash Sunday School and the Howe children came up so we were both chapel and church you see and I still go, like that when you know, I get a chance. But Alec used to come up from Ballahane Farm, across the fields up to the chapel and after chapel in the springtime and fine nights we would walk from the Howe Chapel down Port St. Mary, the whole lot of us, you know, the age group, early teens, and we’d sing and we’d go up to the Parish Church and down Ballagawne Road and then back home and that was our … and sometimes we used to walk from the Howe Chapel round Glen Chass, up round by the Chasms, that way home, you see.
JR A good walk.
Mrs M Yes, but and I said to Alec, I said, ‘All over the years …’ – I mean I had lots of boyfriends, oh, I had but you see Alec was staid and I had lots of boyfriends who would like to go to dances and all but Alec wouldn’t you see, anyway, then I would buzz off with another fellow and then I’d meet Alec again at chapel and I’d go off with him again. And when we got, when he asked me to marry him I said, ‘My hat!’ I said, ‘I’ve waited long enough for you!’ I said, ‘Why the sudden turn?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s like this,’ he said, ‘there’ll be lots of strange soldiers and airmen round,’ he said, ‘and then I might lose you forever.’ Now then would you believe that? And I said, ‘That’s the first time that you’ve ever sort of come out with your thoughts,’ so we had a good life, we had a wonderful life in a sense, I mean we had hard, you know, there was times you know when we didn’t see eye to eye but you don’t ... I think that’s what makes marriage but some people they won’t work at it you see, so. But mind you Alec was a good man, he was, an odd time, well of course he had lots of shepherd friends and in the winter time when we, especially when we came down here they would come and I had an Aga or a Rayburn or whatever it was in the kitchen out there and they would sit on a wet day, on a wet morning they would sit and I would make coffee for them and I was able to get on with my work you see, so, but we had lots and lots of friends you know that but Alec never, he used to say, you know, ‘It’s nice to come home.’ I’d say, ‘Is that you Alec?’ and he’d say, ‘who do you think it is then?’ So he’d say, ‘Well it’s nice to come home, even if it’s to you!’ But he was ... he was a good, a wonderful husband and a good father.
JR So when did you move from Cregneash down here? 5
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Mrs M Oh, he went and bought this, at least he said, as a boy he always loved this place and then he came home one day and he said he met Joe Preston who was a farmer up the Howe and he said his daughter and her husband, he’s going a Harbour Master in Douglas so they’ve got to move to Douglas and they’re going to sell Atholl Lodge he said and Alec came home and I said, ‘My Lord, you’re not going to buy that are you?’ I thought, oh my hat, because you see my great-uncle was getting older and older and of course he was a born Cregneash man and anyway he came home and he said, ‘I’ve been in touch with the fellow that owns it and he wants a quick sale because he’s wanting to buy a house in Douglas so I bought it.’ Oh, I thought and how am I going to tell Joe, you know, my uncle, so I didn’t know what to say, I honestly didn’t because I didn’t want to leave Cregneash but you see over the war years families moved out, girls married and moved to Port St. Mary and there was a friend of mine that, she married a Scot and she moved to Airdrie in Scotland and I lost her friendship you see so it’s ... you know one by one, and then you know the old people died and of course them houses was left empty and I thought to myself you know a day will come when there’ll be nobody, which has come, because Stanley used to oh Harry Dawson has come back, Harry, well you see Harry was born in the village but his father was a harbourmaster. He’d been sailing and then he became a so Harry was born elsewhere apart from coming up to his grandparents but now I’m glad he’s back because
JR Yes, I had a chat with him the other day.
Mrs M Pardon?
JR I had a chat with him the other day.
Mrs M Did you? He’s a good fellow and you see when Alec was alive of course he had sheep in Cregneash, well I used to go up with him every day and then I used to, because the girl that was looking after the church, she took ill, and she asked me would I, when I was up would I just make sure it was tidy so for eleven years I’ve been, I was a dogsbody up there and then I’d be, you know, I used to, I said, ‘I don’t know anything much about, I know about banking, how to bank money,’ but I didn’t know how to invest money. So there was another couple in Port St. Mary that was doing the other church and they said if I would see to the Sunday and you know, they would see that the books was straight, so it worked and I still do that but Charles Crossley does it now so, but Harry now has come so, I haven’t 6
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the conveyance to go to Cregneash. I go on Sunday, every Sunday you know, to Cregneash and it’s our Festival Day on Sunday so
JR Can you remember, what year, can you remember what year you moved out of Cregneash, roughly?
Mrs M Now, it would be, I know Alex was, I think he’d just gone to university so he’d be about eighteen, I think, so from, it would be about 1937, ’47, wouldn’t it?
JR ’57?
Mrs M ’57? That’s right, it might have been ’57, it might have been ’60, something like that.
JR Right.
Mrs M Yes, because the Vicar, when he wrote about Alec’s death in the church magazine – he put in that I was sort of, we lived in Cregneash, but we lived at Fistard for thirty-seven years. But, I knew wonderful old people there, you know, I really did, and I spent, of course Harry Kelly, you know the famous Harry Kelly, although he never sort of, well, he didn’t want to be, he never thought he’d be, but he was for many years on the Calf Island you see working for Carey, Mr Carey, and then he used to come home, of course his parents were dead and his sister was married, she was a Mrs Northey [sp ???], I think, I was in Cregneash I think when she, her daughter came home from Australia, she’d gone to Australia and took her mother out to Australia and I suppose she died out there, I don’t know, because Harry never sort of, you know he wouldn’t. But I used to go down to Harry’s, because if, when I was cooking a dinner you know and I would be buzzing around you know to make sure he was all right and then I’d say you know, ‘I’ve got a pot of broth on Harry,’ ‘Oh [unclear],’ he’d say and I would go down with a jugful but he would never eat in front of anybody, he’d say, ‘I’ll just put it in the oven,’ and there was no heat in the oven, he had the fire of course, but, and, or if I made a pie and when I made fruit pies or jam you know I always took him a little bit and he was always very grateful you see that, I liked him, because he was interesting you see. And he was telling me once, when he was on the Calf Island in the First World War, you see they used to go fishing, you know, for I suppose fresh food and himself and another fellow came on a punjon [sp ???] of rum and anyway he, I said, ‘What did you do with it, did you bring it up?’ ‘Indeed we didn’t,’ he said, 7
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‘we used to go fishing every day we could and then we’d sit and have a good ’ you know and whatever they were drinking out of Lord knows, I don’t, but he said, ‘until we finished the punjun [sp ???] of rum.’ But I suppose they must have had their own enjoyment you know, but, and then of course when he’d come home you know he was fond of a ... tippling his elbow a little bit, you know, like the most of them. But always when he came back he used to bring a bag full of you know these hot peppermints, you know, strong peppermints and he’d give us all we children would take them and we’d be like you know, throoom you know, but we would take them, you know, but he was a good lad.
JR Can I ask you some things about, well odd bits and pieces on my list here? Can you remember much about the Honey Pool you know, Pooyl Veeil [sp ???]?
Mrs M Pooyl Veeil [sp ???] yes. Well of course you see I can remember the men of the village used, they must have put some sort of clay in the bottom of it if I remember and always at Easter time they sailed their model boats, yachts I suppose, you know, schooners like on it and we children would go to see them, you know these, because I can remember my father had, naturally he was a seaman and he used to, you know, you’d be seeing him chipping away making these boats you know and I don’t know what’s happened to them all, it’s a pity. But now the bottom of Poyll Veeil [sp ???] now is porous and, because Alex, the other, in the early springtime when Poyll Veeil [sp ???] was full and then he noticed one day it was going down and he walked round it and he saw frog spawn in it, so he got a couple of buckets and filled the buckets of frog spawn and took them to where he knew there was a well, that’s, and he put them where the well overflowed and he put the, and there’s frogs about, so you see we always used to, you know
JR Can you – were they still using it for ice, when you were a child?
Mrs M Not in my time but they were used, I believe Kentraugh
JR That’s right.
Mrs M Because that is Kentraugh land you know.
JR Yes he still owns it.
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Mrs M Yes, and down from there Alex has got, Alec, me husband, bought fields there and now of course young Alex has inherited them and he’s cleaned them, have you ever been over there?
JR I see, I look over from the road, I see what he is doing, yes, it’s good.
Mrs M He’s so proud of it, you know, and last year, I didn’t hear it this year, last year, I used to go with him, he takes the dogs up too because the dogs are never, his dog is not road trained, so he takes him up there and they have a wonderful run round and he was away that way and I heard him call and I was over at the van and I said, ‘What is it?’ so he said, ‘listen,’ and then I heard the cuckoo and it’s the first time I’d heard the cuckoo for years because one of Alec, my husband’s sayings was, ‘I like to hear the cuckoo because I think I’m all right for another year.’ It must have been an old saying he had but he was always happy when he come in and you know, ‘I heard the cuckoo today.’ But you know these things, you can say what you like, become part and parcel of your life.
JR You know, to go back to the pool, at the moment it’s, okay it’s got water in the winter and then fairly quickly in the spring it drains out.
Mrs M It drains out.
JR Was it holding it for much longer in the old days?
Mrs M Oh yes, yes it was, it was, because I can remember you know, even in my time up there come March, end of March we always sort of, Alec always had his lambing then you see because he had hill sheep but we had one dog and he would run round the, run round Poyll Veeil [sp ???] and then he would jump in it and I can remember that because it was the time when, and I’ve seen geese on it. Because I can remember one night we were going over, because we had a cow, this was over to Ballnahowe, we had a cow that was due to calve and it was a gorgeous moonlight night and I said, ‘What on earth is that?’ and Alec said, ‘that’ll be geese on Poyll Veeil [sp ???],’and of course Glen, the dog, was away you know and we saw, well there were about four or five of them, they must have just been on route somewhere else and saw water and, so I know there was water then but there’s not now. But you see again it needs to be, well a new bottom in it, a new clay bottom but if ever it will happen I don’t know.
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JR I doubt it.
Mrs M But you know when we were children there was five girls of my age and Jack, the one boy, you see, and we used to go up Meayll and this side of the, you know, the stones, there was a hollow and we used to play in this hollow and all of a sudden one of, somebody, I’ve done it, you know, ‘I’m going home,’ and when one would say it, all the rest would follow and I said to Jack once, ‘what did you, did you see something?’ and he said, ‘no, but I felt a funny, as if I was being watched.’ And you see this is what, I mean people don’t understand but I think people like us that was sort of near the earth more than, well of course country people are I think. And in the war time of course, as you know, I was up there livin’ and a man, a soldier came and he said, ‘Do you think you could take in two men because we’re going to build huts on that mountain?’ So I don’t know why I didn’t say, ‘What mountain?’ So I said, ‘Well I’m sorry but,’ I said, ‘I’ve got a new baby.’ I mean it was 1941 and I said, ‘I’ve got an old uncle so,’ and my friend from next door, the next door lady she said, he said, I said, ‘oh this is Mrs Karran from next door,’ she was a Liverpool woman and he said to her, ‘could you take in a couple of soldiers? It’s only while we,’ you know, ‘erect the huts?’ So she said, ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘me husband’s at sea so,’ she said, ‘I’ve got two boys,’ and he said, ‘well I’ll make sure that,’ you know, ‘that they’re decent young fellows.’ So she said, ‘Well I’ll put the two boys in one bed and they can have the two single beds,’ and it worked out very well. But Elsie, who came from Everton, she called a spade a spade and there’s one of the fellas that, you know, she always argued with. Now this is quite true and although Elsie’s gone now, she was awfully good to them, and this fellow that came round said, ‘I don’t mind them having a cup of tea in the morning but when they get up the mountain they can,’ you know, ‘get their breakfast,’ ‘cos they had some sort of a shack up there. So of course Elsie was one of these sort of people, she always made sure that they had a good breakfast before they went out and, but this one fellow she argued with him and one day, whatever the argument was, I think his name was Tom, he said, ‘Oh, will I be glad to shake the dust of this God-forsaken place,’ he said. ‘I didn’t join up,’ he said, ‘to come up here,’ he said. So she said, ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of you too!’ and I mean her words were quite nice so I said to Tom, ‘what happened to you?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘she’s a good woman but,’ he said, ‘she’ll never get the better of me!’ So anyway the days came and they went up the top and he came down one day and he said to Elsie, ‘Well, Elsie,’ he said, ‘I’ve got me marching orders.’ ‘Thank God for that,’ she said. She said, ‘To be rid of you.’ So she said, ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I’m getting put overseas.’ 10
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Well we never heard anything about him until the war was over and one day Elsie and I, I’ve got a photograph somewhere of it, you see our two gates, there was a hedge running down and the two gates were like that, and Elsie would come out and we’d, you know, we’d be like this on the gates and there was a coach came round with a load of people and I said to Elsie, I said, there was an old man coming along and he was linked to a young woman and I said, ‘That old fella’s ready for the heights.’ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘just look at him,’ she said, ‘he can hardly walk.’ So anyway when he came up, when these two people came up to go back to the coach he stood and he looked and he said, ‘Just as I remembered,’ he said, ‘Elsie and Doris standing at the gate.’ He said, ‘You kept my sanity,’ and Elsie said in bright words, ‘who so-and-so are you?’ He said, ‘I’m Tom.’ ‘Who Tom?’ He said, ‘I lived with you, Elsie,’ he said and of course and he said, ‘this is my wife,’ he said. He had been a prisoner in the Japanese hands and he said, ‘How many times did I pray that I would get back to Cregneash and see Spanish Head,’ he said, ‘and Elsie and Doris standing at the gate, you kept my sanity.’ And this girl was a nurse and she, it was, she was engaged before he went abroad and they married and she said, ‘with drinking bad water and,’ she said, ‘his beatings and [unclear], she said, ‘it’s took an awful toll on him.’ Well it did because he was an old, old, man but, and you know he said, ‘Can I come in to the house, Elsie?’ he said so she said, ‘of course.’ Well I didn’t see Elsie for a week after because she couldn’t come and talk, although she was so, such a hard, you know, girl, she couldn’t talk about it and we never spoke about it again, you know.
JR Her heart was touched.
Mrs M Oh, she, you know, because she said, ‘I liked him,’ she said, ‘but,’ she said, ‘he wasn’t going to get the better of me,’ so, well I thought in the end she got the better of him because, he used to pray that he would wake up in Cregneash but you know ... oh, and then they used to come down for water because there was no water up there and I said to my great uncle one day I said, ‘Go down and get water will you?’ and he came back with two empty buckets so, it was a case of the men from the top had been down, they had their buckets on a fire, ling fire and of course they went down and put their black bottomed buckets in and there was the thing full of soot.
JR The well.
Mrs M So the men had to go down, the local men, had to go down and empty it and of 11
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course it was, like we had to wait and those people that had run out of water had to come round the houses looking for a kettle full so I said to one of the fellas after I said, ‘In future come and get my water pails,’ so they always came and Alex was about ten months then and oh, you know, these men of course were away from home and you know natural they loved the baby you know
JR You know the, you were talking about the hollow where you had the strange feeling well in that area, between the pool and the circles there used to be though I’ve no knowledge of it, it disappeared a long time ago, something called Crosh- mulley-moar [sp ???], the great deceiving cross, does that ring any bells at all?
Mrs M No, no, no, because you know I think we always lived in fear of Meayll you know and especially as we got older and if we had that feeling or something that we never went up, only in a pack, you know what I mean, there’d be five or six of us you see. But I don’t know what it was but we always had that feeling that there was something supernatural there. But I’ve got, I’ve got, now, oh I’ve got a letter somewhere that Ned-Beg-Hon-Ruy had written, you know Ned-Beg-Hon-Ruy, the Faragher, and he said his father had been to Port Erin and he, on the way back he fell in with the fairies and they showed him wonders and wonders and he was there all night with them and they were singin’ and dancin’ and all this and then in the morning when he woke up they were all gone. Well I suppose he was a bit like Harry, but he always maintained, I should have looked that letter out for you, it’s only a copy I’ve got, but he said his father always maintained he was took by the fairies you see.
JR I’d be interested in that yes.
Mrs M Well I’ll read, I’ve got, you see that case there
JR Full of stuff.
Mrs M I’m saying I’ll have to move out and let all this stuff come in, so, but
JR Well we’ll worry about that afterwards but can I ask you about, can you remember the Spar Quarry?
Mrs M Yes, I remember that, the trucks that they used to run, you know, opposite Susannah Shimmin’s, you know, there but, over there and I remember there was, 12
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who they were, I think one was a Scot, they lived up in a little hut up in Cregneash. Now you know where the Smithy is in Cregneash, well upside there, there was a hut, a wooden hut, and they were living in there.
JR Some of the workmen?
Mrs M The workmen, yes.
JR Was that when you were young, when you were living in Cregneash?
Mrs M Yes, yes, but you see the Spar Quarry, we only went to the Port in, if you wanted new shoes, we went of course to the Howe Sunday School. But what, I don’t know what year the Spar Quarry was.
JR Well, can you remember it when you were like a young child or ...?
Mrs M No, no, because I can remember when, you know how you hear talk, that there was a woman in the village and she was friendly with one of these men, but you know, and then some of the other men would talk of who he was and what he was and all this sort of thing but you see, now I would listen but it was nothing to me because I didn’t know them, I knew the woman but I didn’t know the men and, because you see they’d be workin’ all day and of course I don’t suppose we were, I don’t know how long the Spar Quarry went on, do you know?
JR Yes, I’ve got some information, I’ll tell you about it probably when this is switched off, but we know it was already operating before 1925, or 1924 and then they formed a company with various people who lived in Port St. Mary but really after that from the records that I’ve seen it did less and less and then, you know, the economy was going down everywhere and
Mrs M That’s right.
JR and people were emigrating so there was less building.
Mrs M Well you see now I told you when my father bought the house in Port St. Mary, well he was sailing and he was a schooner skipper and we lived in Port St. Mary and then there was a lady living next door to my mother on the Cronk, she said, ‘I’m going to let the house for the summer,’ because people were coming round 13
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and looking for houses so she said, ‘why don’t you?’ So me mother thought and she said to me father, ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if you want to you know, it’s all right with me,’ and of course we, my mother would let the house and the lady next door let the house, so of course, we were, I was back home again you see then, because my great-uncle was still sailing and, but you see that would be in the Twenties, so of course although I knew about the Spar Quarry and the railway track over and the little wagons that was on it you know, I didn’t take so much notice then
JR Well you don’t, do you?
Mrs M you know, it wasn’t something that you know like different, I used to listen in our house when me father’d be home and I used to listen to the tales of the sea and tales of the Brig Lily and you know the other ships and The Thoushla [sp ???] and all this sort of thing you see at the time.
JR Who did, when, you moved down in 1922, do you think it was running then when you moved?
Mrs M It what?
JR The Spar Quarry was still running at the end of the war?
Mrs M It must, it must have been, because I think, you know, if I’d have been living up in Cregneash permanent I would have sort of come in to more contact you see I suppose but I don’t know, you see, and this friend of mine, she, although she’s ninety, gone ninety-one now you see, she wasn’t living in Cregneash then. She was, I think eighteen when, she was born 1910 so well she was eighteen when she left so she might have known more about it, I’ll ask her, see does she remember it.
JR That’s good to finish it now then, or that side.
Mrs M Is that finished that’s good?
JR No, no, just get it turned over. The other one you see, the old Cregneash quarry there, the large one, well you know now the car park. I’ve been looking up about it and getting the dates, and it seems that the Highways were running it for, would have been running it while you were living up in Cregneash.
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Mrs M Yes, yes, because it wasn’t as far back and at one side, that side, you know, the road is here and there was this, there was a great big slab of rock and we always called it the slidin’ rock and we used to play a lot on it and that was quite near the road and that, you see that on my finger
JR Oh yes.
Mrs M we used to go head first down and there must have been a slate and that was hanging off so you can imagine how I squealed and I was running home with this and there was a lady coming up with her two buckets of water like
End of side 1
JR When you were on the sliding rock was it, had they already started excavating the quarry much, had they been working it?
Mrs M They must have been, they must have been because you know there was piles of, but I suppose it was for building roads, they’d be doing that. I can remember some sort of machinery there, a hut there or something, but I was only you know sort of, I don’t suppose I was minding them until I got the point off me finger.
JR How old were you then do you think?
Mrs M Well, I don’t know was I at school or not. So you see we didn’t go to school from Cregneash until we were five so it might have been before that it might have been after but I can remember me mother saying, ‘Well that’ll learn you now not to go head first down on the sliding rocks again,’ so that was the comfort I got.
JR Can you remember, Harry Dawson was talking about the near miss in the last war of a, when they were blasting, about a boulder coming through one of the houses.
Mrs M No, no, no, although I was living in Cregneash but he wasn’t, how did he think that, I don’t know, you see his grandmother lived there and his grandfather was dead and his aunt who was, she had been a nurse in England and then when she retired she became the, a district nurse, so you see Harry might have been coming there. I can remember the planes going over the houses to Belfast or wherever they were going, the German planes but I never remember you know anything like that. I’ve got, you know of course, that’s what I said, I was steeped in talk about, 15
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you know the Brig Lily and all that sort of thing and of course when the men, with my father being a seaman, other seamen, when he was home, would gather in our house and of course I had two ears that was better than they are today and I’d be listening to them you see and I’ve got a ring that came off the Brig Lily.
JR Yes, you told me about that.
Mrs M Did I show it to you?
JR You haven’t shown it to me, you told me about the night when it
Mrs M And one of my great-grandfathers this was, must have been, in the fields, and found it and he thought well if there’s one, there’s two, why he thought that. And, you know, now Gladys that told me this, Gladys Corlett, one of her, her great- grandfather I think was blew up on it and they found an arm in the field somewhere and one of the men said, ‘Well, I know who he is,’ so whoever was there said, ‘well you can’t because how would you know an arm?’ – because he was the only red haired man [unclear]’ because it was snatched, it wasn’t burnt off his arm, the hairs. So Gladys was telling me this you see but you know – have you got the poetry of the Brig Lily?
JR I have, yes.
Mrs M And have you got Tom Dipper’s one?
JR I haven’t got that one, no.
Mrs M No, well, and I’ve got, you know last year when The Amber Rose, that fishing boat went off here, four miles off here, well I’ve got a poem, ‘The loss of the fishing boat Dart of Port St. Mary,’ December 5th, 1872 I think it was, and it was four miles off ... ‘They left Erin’s Isle with a prosperous gale,’ it says, it is a lovely poem and this was written by Edward Faragher, ‘and there was eight men in the crew, Paul Corkish and crew bid the world adieu.’ It’s sometimes it’s very hard to see and I’ve got to try and fit in the words because you know it was so badly done, but that was four miles off the Isle of Man coming home when she foundered with all hands and I often think to myself history does repeat itself because here now ... ‘It’s the Irish boat four miles off,’ but I don’t know, I don’t know – am I a bit fey or not? 16
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JR No, no, not at all. Actually, I know you told me this before, about the practice of, you used to, the practice of rolling the eggs.
Mrs M Oh yes, yes, but let me tell you this, before we rolled our eggs, now I never knew until I grew up in the church and you know studied the ways of the church that the Thursday before Good Friday is, they had a name, Maundy Thursday as you know, but always that day my mother and Gladys’ mother and Gladys and Jack and my sister, me brother was the little fella, he was left at home with somebody else, we went half way up the Chasm Hill and there’s a stile that goes out to Rebogue [sp ???]. We used to go down Rebogue [sp ???] with our cans and gather flitters, you know what flitters are don’t you, limpets, well, flitters and of course we children ...
Break in recording
JR Maundy and the flitters
Mrs M so we went round to Rebogue [sp ???] and of course we children would look for the biggest shells, get a stone and knock them and of course when you got big shells you could make cups and saucers, you know, but of course I suppose our toys was few and far between and we always could find something. Well they were, we would bring the flitters home and they would boil them for the hens, they’d chop them up, I loved an odd flitter, some of them didn’t, but we had hens and of course they were chopped up. Well then we gathered gorse flowers for to colour our eggs, you always looked for nice bright white eggs, and your mother would boil the eggs. Sometimes you’d boil them in onion skins and they were a different colour and then we would roll them at the Sound. We always went on Good Friday and Easter Monday to the Sound.
JR When you say rolled them on the Sound, on the Parade?
Mrs M On the Parade.
JR As a game?
Mrs M Yes, and then the Howe girls and boys would be there and of course there was some of the boys was rather rough and they’d smash your eggs, you know, but, and then we would sit and eat them, but that was a ritual with us, that always on 17
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Thursday we’d gather the flitters and then of course that has, it’s gone out now but I mean there was a whole crowd going, it wasn’t just one or two and I don’t know, do you know, that out at the Chasms, out above Rebogue [sp ???] there’s, you can still see the sod hedges of houses and up on the Meayll, not Meayll, up on Spanish Head, you could see where there had been drills to, I don’t know whether they’d be using spades or what they’d be doing to set whatever potatoes or corn or whatever it was and I said once, ‘Why did they go and have these sod houses out there?’ And they used to take cattle out I believe because fodder was hard, you know, it was in the times, and they would take them out there to feed them and they would stay out with them in case they would slip over the cliffs you see. So you see, that is, I wonder how long ago that was.
JR Hard times.
Mrs M Yes, and then of course you know you listen to the tales and you listen to these awful tales of Bugganes and lord knows what and the men that was home and they were on the Isle of Man boats, at the back end when they were paid off you see, they would come home and go on the roads, work in the quarry, but they always had a spell of fishing out the Black Head and roundabout there you know, they’d go, ling fishin’ because I can remember them dryin’ the ling outside and then puttin’ them on a rack, there was a rack on the beams and they would put them up there when they were dried for the winter. I can remember that quite well because I loved salt fish and this great-uncle of mine he would take a spell at home ‘cos he knew the men would be, you know, home and you know they had a tale that there was something headless seen out there and they called it the beast, the Koine Dhoo you know.
JR Well, you tell me.
Mrs M And they were sitting fishing and one of the fellas said, he started to pull his line in and you know they had these big bamboo fishing rods in those days and he pulled his line in and he said, ‘I’m going,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen him,’ he said, ‘there he is over there,’ and some of the others seen him too they said and that was supposed to be the fella that was taken out there so, if he was or he wasn’t but some of them seen him with a … I don’t know whether they did or not, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t dispute it, not after the feelings we had up on Meayll.
JR Are there any other stories like that around? 18
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Mrs M Around about? Well I’ll tell you this, I’ll tell you and this is quite true because it happened to me. You know the Brig Lily was lost in 1852, December 28th, well in the war years the light keeper that was up at the Chasms, Mr Coombe he was an Orcadian, and he used, he asked to see would I take his bread in because Willie the baker hadn’t petrol to go up so Mr Coombe came down and I thought well there was Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday you see and he would come down, I never asked him in – I don’t know why but he was a very tall man, a very fine man, and every Friday night ’course James Karran, Stanley’s uncle, he would come down every night to my great-uncle and we would play cards, Euchre. We never played on Sunday night and Saturday night we packed in before the midnight hour came you see because we were getting in to Sunday and it was wrong to play cards on Sunday. So anyway Mr Coombe came down to get his bread and I would give him his bread and say good evening to him and anyway, so this particular night he came down and I was out in the back kitchen so James, this was Stanley’s uncle and I liked him very much, he was the same age as me father but he was knowledgeable, and he went to the door and he, Mr Coombe said, ‘I’ve come for my bread.’ ‘Well,’ James said, ‘come on in then,’ he said, just like that. So Mr Coombe came in and I had the table laid because every Friday night I did potatoes and herring and I was in the kitchen and I thought, ‘oh my Lord help us, what am I going to do now?’ and I had to come out so James said, ‘that’s Doris, that’s Alec there, this is Joe and I’m James, what’s thy name?’ So Mr Coombe said ‘George.’ ‘Well George thou’ll be,’ he said and, ‘sit down and play cards.’ So ‘Yes,’ says Mr Coombe. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we play cards every night, so come down,’ he said, ‘we’re always looking for a spare hand because herself here,’ that was me, ‘is busy.’ So Mr Coombe looked at me and I said, ‘You’re welcome,’ and then James said, ‘do you like spuds and herrin’?’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and I’ve smelt them when I’ve been coming down and,’ he said, ‘I’ve thought to meself it’s years since I’ve had them,’ cos he was a light-keeper’s son and he was a light-keeper and of course he’d travelled round so, ‘well,’ he said, ‘take thee hat and coat off,’ he said, ‘and draw a chair up.’ Well I thought, you know, and I don’t know, do you know the water that you get from the potatoes that the spuds and herrin’ are boiled in is called aurie [sp ???] and I used to chop an onion fine and put it in this and in those days of course with having cows I used to churn so I’d plenty of buttermilk so I looked at the table and I looked and I thought to myself well Mr Coombe said how much he enjoyed it when James said, ‘Be down tomorrow night and we’ll play, but,’ he said, ‘we don’t play after midnight e’en.’ ‘Neither do I,’ said Mr Coombe, he said, ‘I was brought up in a ’ I suppose a strict home too. So all the years he came down and then about 19
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midnight we always sort of seemed to pack in because Alex was only a baby at the time, a young fella, and he was in bed and then I’d see me great-uncle, you know, beginning to get a bit tired so then of course about ten to twelve we’d decide to pack in and I would always sit and read, I’m fond of poetry and I’m still fond of it and I used to sit and read poetry. So I was sitting in front of the last of the fire and we had a wooden mantelpiece and in the middle of it there was a screw and on it was this ring of the Brig Lily. Now I had nothing to drink, only spuds and herrin’, and I was sitting there quite the thing and no it was a Saturday night it was, because James never came in on the Sunday, he never came but it was an awful night on Saturday night, it was dreadful and it was blowing a living gale, and this was December 28th 1952, and I was sitting there and I thought oh I’d better get to bed and all of a sudden the ring started to swing. Now it did, I saw it, as the fella said, with me own two eyes, and I knew it couldn’t swing because the screw was so tight that the ring just fit down behind it, so I looked at it and I got up and I ran upstairs I left the light on downstairs, of course the blackout was up and Alec said, ‘What shifted you?’ and I said, ‘you know that ring,’ I said, ‘started to swing.’ He said, ‘I’m glad there’s something shifted you,’ he said, ‘I was just asleep and now you’ve woke me up.’ So anyway next day, Sunday, which was a rotten day too, James came in and he never came in on a Sunday, he was farming but he never came in on a Sunday, and I said, ‘What’s the matter James?’ ‘Nothing,’ he said and I said to him, ‘you know,’ I said, ‘last night after you fellas went,’ I said, ‘I was sitting reading and,’ I said, ‘that ring started to swing,’ and he said, ‘I’m not surprised,’ and I said, ‘why?’ He said, ‘A hundred years last night the Brig Lily’ blew up.’ He said, ‘Why didn’t thou grip it?’ he said, and we might have got to know what happened,’ and I said, ‘I might have been transported down to Kitterland.’ ‘Well it wouldn’t have mattered,’ he said, ‘as long as we got to know.’ And I said, ‘Yes, but what about me?’ You see how they say things, but that was quite, quite, true and I got no idea why only what James told me and I never thought about the Brig Lily so now of course, you know, I often think, and especially round that do you ever go to the Rushen churchyard?
JR Yes, yes, many times, yes.
Mrs M Well I went, Alex was doing a paper on it for somebody about the Brig Lily and he wanted to know, you know, who they were, and that you know and anyhow, you’ll be getting the sack; we’ll go and have a drink and you can shut it off now.
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JR Well I haven’t got much more to do; I tell you what, we’ll finish off and then have a cup.
Mrs M Well, we went to the Rushen churchyard and he was reading and copying down their names and I walked you know just a little further among the old, old, stones and I came on a man, I know it was a Captain something Crebbin, it’s worth looking at, and I don’t know as he was not old, sort of thing, but it said, ‘Died,’ whatever date it was, and I’m going to go back because he [Alex] was ready to go and when he’s ready to go he’s ready to go, and it said this Crebbin his name was, ‘Died,’ such a date ,‘when he drew his last breath,’ and I thought what a wonderful way to express so now you see, and if you look you’ll see it sort of, you know, quite near the
JR The Lily.
Mrs M The Lily so.
JR I’ll go and have a look.
Mrs M You go and have a look at it because
JR I often walk back through there with the children, coming back from school.
Mrs M Oh of course, yes well, because it was up round the, you know, the Kentraugh grave there, up those steps we went and then to the right. But it’s, to me the churchyard is like a book because there’s ones buried there that’s built the Chickens [Rock] and Harry, and very few know where Harry Kelly is buried and I went to, of course naturally I went to Harry Kelly’s funeral in 1935, it was, I think he was eighty-five and I went with Walter Clarke, he worked for the Museum at the time. So, you know, I think to meself, it’s to me it’s like an open book that, I don’t know.
JR Can I ask you about the shop in Cregneash?
Mrs M Oh, Bridie’s,
JR Yes, can you remember when it was opened?
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Mrs M No, but I can remember playing in the house where, before, when it was a ruin, down the Sound Road you mean.
JR Yes, on the corner.
Mrs M That’s right. Well we used to go down there to play, us little ones, we used to, you know, there was a sort of fireplace, not a fireplace, but an open fire and then it was just, it must have been a thatched house I think. There was no roof on it, there was two windows there looking out like blind eyes but we used to go down there to play. I can remember picking wild strawberries there, so I often wondered had somebody, perhaps visitors in days gone by, you know, had strawberries and thrown something down or something I don’t know but we picked these three or four wild strawberries, they were only little ones, I suppose we ate them if the truth was only known, but I can remember Harry Quirk building up that for Bridie.
JR When you were a child?
Mrs M Oh no, I was a, you know, grown up, well growing, I don’t know how old I’d be but I can’t think, I’ll have to try and find out from somebody.
JR Well, then, when was the shop open there?
Mrs M Well they built the shop on the side of it you see, that, and I remember of course Mrs Lowey, they lived at the house, the first house in the village as you go in, you know, at the quarry there, and, because Bridie’s two sisters, they lived in the, down at the Sound farm and I said to Mrs Lowey once, ‘Why aren’t you there?’ so the answer she gave me that you know, she, the sisters were there so she said, ‘I never got my rightful place,’ she said, she was Welsh, I liked her and she had two daughters. There had been a boy in too but evidently he had died in, about seventeen or something, I never knew him but Madge and her sister, I've forgotten her name too. there you see, it run, at the back of our hedge where I lived, that is now the café, that quarterland ran along and across to Mrs Taubman’s house, Mrs Taubman was the grandmother of, what’s his name, Kennaugh the grocer in Port Erin, Henry and they used to come, I remember his oldest sister she used to come up a lot you see and I used to spend a lot of time with Mrs, but we only knew her as Mrs Tummin, not Taubman, you know, Taubman was very polite but so you see now and again things crop up in my mind. 22
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JR Well we were just finishing off about Bridie Lowey’s shop
Mrs M Oh, Bridie’s.
JR I was just trying to get a rough idea when it opened.
Mrs M Shop, of course, I can remember when Alex was a little boy and my great-uncle would send, ever before Alex went to school, he would send him to Bridie’s for an ounce of ‘tobarca’ and he would give him a pound note and he would say, tobacco was ninepence an ounce then, Battle Axe, and he’d say, ‘You want three pennies to make one shilling,’ and then he would go right through and he would say, ‘if Bridie wraps it up with a piece of paper, don’t thou throw that away because it will be the ten shillin’ note,’ you see, but you know, it’s ... but Bridie
JR Had it been open long then at that time?
Mrs M Pardon?
JR Had it been open a while?
Mrs M Oh yes, he had been so oh yes he’d been open quite a while, I can’t, I’ll ask Gladys if she has got any idea, I don’t think she will have, I’ll ask Stanley on Sunday to see has he got any idea when it opened ‘cos he doesn’t talk to me you know is that on? It doesn’t matter, you can cut it out, because we had a … an English lady came over and she said, and of course I was looking after Cregneash church and I thought you’d better turn it off.
JR I’d better had.
Break in recording
Mrs M you get the whole tin, and your father or uncle, whoever was there would put a hole through that way and a bolt through and put a string in and put a knot on the end and boy could we run down the road with them and keep them running and you try it but
JR Can you remember when the café opened? 23
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Mrs M No, that was, I mean it was open all my days and the Sound Café, I don’t know when that would be oh, because, you know, perhaps now, they used to, what did they call them, the soldiers from Castletown, used to walk from Castletown, and we still call that the Parade, because they used to come down there evidently to drill and then they’d have to walk back to Castletown so probably the café was there then.
JR In the First World War?
Mrs M Yes, and that would, I don’t what they’d call those soldiers, I’ve heard the name of them. But isn’t there some of the, isn’t there plaques in Malew Church, in the church there to these soldiers?
JR It wouldn’t be the Fencibles would it, the older types?
Mrs M Yes, so, but I think you’d have to come in the morning and start all day because you don’t get a chance to talk.
JR Ah well, but I’m picking up some things here, but I’m interested to hear why they called it the Parade because I didn't know why it was called the Parade.
Mrs M Oh you didn’t?
JR No.
Mrs M And I’ll tell you another thing down the Sound, I don’t know whether you know this or not. Do you go to the Sound now and again?
JR Oh yes.
Mrs M Well have you ever looked across to Spanish Head, have you seen Queen Victoria and a cross above her head in stone?
JR No.
Mrs M Well it’s not been carved, it’s just the formation and if you stand, you know where the lighthouse buildings were? I think they’re toilets now, that used to be the lighthouse for the Calf you know, for the storehouse. Well, if you stand on the 24
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road there and you look out you can see it as plain as day and you can see Queen Victoria’s nose and you have a look now the next time you are down.
JR I will.
Mrs M Now I’ll tell you another thing that’s down, you know, there’s something or other down for, is it Cowley, is it Cowley his name was, one of the MHKs or something, there’s, I’ve forgotten what it was now but if you go down that and over there’s a hump there and there used to be in my day and Alex has found it since, ‘cos he sent, I told him about it, and there was a stone, it’s now buried in the, you know, I suppose it’s either sunk but many, many, years ago it would be, long before even the Brig Lily and this boat, she was a foreign boat that was coming in and she was caught in the storm and they sort of came into this shore and there was, people must have been living, well there were because the tramman grows up there, and there’s a house up, the part of a house up there yet, and these people, Manx people came down, well they didn’t speak English and these people didn’t, they thought they were I suppose coming to murder them, and they, instead of coming on ashore they went back and they were drowned and these Manx people took them and buried them, what they could get up there and we always knew that this was a grave and Alex said to me, ‘Well that stone has gone,’ and I had, well, I had hurt my ankle and I said I’d come down so I said, ‘if you stop the van here and,’ I said, ‘I – if you walk down and keep the van and,’ I said, ‘go straight down there and you’ll find that stone there still,’ and he did, but he didn’t pull it away you see, he didn’t pull the grass away from it but it’s there, what is it? Kione ny Gerrag [sp ???] I think was, is the name of it, I think that’s the name of it. I knew the names but you know
JR You can’t remember the name of the boat by any chance?
Mrs M No, I never heard because it was, well I suppose it was, might have been a hundred years or a hundred and fifty or you know even when my time and it would be older than my great-uncle was because he was born in 1878, well it was long before that you see that and I’ve got a poem, do you believe that history repeats itself, have you ever heard?
JR Yes I’ve heard that.
Mrs M You have, well in 1872, November 1872 ... 25
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END OF INTERVIEW
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