Section 1 - 'The Isle of Man in the 1860s'

Memoir of the childhood of Dr. Richard H. Quine (1859-1959).

Memories of what one has actually seen must differ from stories heard from others, and again from things one has read about, memories of eighty years ago must of necessity be those of childhood. Later years amd more experience and wide travel may illumine those memories and give explanations and meaning to what the child had not understood.

In a long life places, events and people seem to pass in procession like a moving panorama so that the later scenes tend to make one forget the earlier impressions, fortunately the youthful brain is more easily impressed with sensations which the memory retains long after the slighter impressions of later years are forgotten, these early memories are mixed up with, if they do not actually create the homing instinct felt more or less by all of us. It, is expressed in Burns's song Old Lang Syne, which is about childhoods memories, We've run about the braes and pulled the gowans fine we've paddled in the burn from morning sun to dine, but we've wandered many a weary foot,and the broad seas have roared between us since then, but our memories constantly go back, back to whence we came,

In a little island where families have lived for hundreds of years. Where intermarriages have taken place within the limits of the Island until everyone is more or less related to all the others, being of one kin they begin to look like each other having lived under similar conditions,and thought similar thought for many generations they begin to react in the same way as the years go on they become more and more a pure breed with all the faults and all the virtues pertaining to pure breeds.

This was the condition in the Island in the middle of the nineteenth century when I was born, the old things were still in existance but fast disappearing the people, the customs, the habits were Manx in a way that has now gone,

Running off from the great central valley of the island which runs from east to west a long glen turns away to the north twisting and turning for three miles or more, up among the mountains,. It is very narrow and deep almost a canyon, there is just room enough at the bottom for the river and a road. The road runs along the river for about two miles and then climbs up steeply to an upper and smaller valley and over the hills to the north.

Here and there along the main valley the sides close in a score or so of yards from each otheer, then it widens out again leaving a little patch of level land in some cases being the bed of an ancient lake. On these little patches there was room for a house and a garden and perhaps a little mill. These houses were few, perhaps a dozen in all the valley, no two of them were in sight of each other, from them one could only see the sky and the steep sides of the hills to the next bend, It was like living in the bottom of a well, high up above out of sight were the mountain farms, the workers on which, coming to the valley rim and looking down could see bits of the road and the river and perhaps one of the houses,

In this valley I was born in the fifties of last century both my parents were pure Manx, their people dating back for 500 years and for that reason related to nearly all the old Manx families in the island. The Manx language was rapidly dying out and was nearly dead but both my parents could speak it and nothing pleased they better than to have a "cooish" with any old Manx speaking friend who might call in passing. This remote little valley did not seem to be a very good place from which to start life with much prospect of success. But from these dozen houses there came three parsons (a bishop,a canon and a vicar) two members of the House of Keys,a well known chemist in a great northern city,a doctor who was an inventor, a member of a great city council and medical officer of health in a great county, from there also sprang the ideas for foresting the Island now evidenced in the Isle of Man forestry board,

In sunmer mornings down in the bottom would be cool shadow until the sunshine would slowly creep down the hillside to fill the whole valley with its warm glow until the afternoon when the shadow would slowly creep up the opposite hill and the valley again be cool and quiet with no sounds but those of the river and the birds,and perhaps the sound of a trotting horse far away along the valley road, up above the sun would be still shining for hours and the bright clouds sailing past.

Along this valley road passed the traffic from north to south,on foot, on horseback, in traps or carts, so that "Matt Hunthans" the valley inn did a good steady business in refreshing travellers before they faced the long steep climb up out of the valley and away to the north.

In those days a great deal of lime was used on the land, there being no railways, the farmers "down in the north" would send their carts to Moores lime kilns at Cross Four Ways near Ballasalla,starting out in the dark morning and coming . back in the evening they would make a call at"Matts" for a well earned rest for horse and man, often there would be a long string of these carts like an eastern caravan.

On Saturdays and on fair days farmers in traps and carts would pass on their way to market at Douglas or Peel or to the fair.

In summer a few visitors would appear in"sociables" a sort of carriage with a high seat in front for the driver and a passenger or two, behind this there were two long fore and aft seats on which the passengers sat facing each other and looked at the scenery,chatted or played cards,these too called at "Matts" the drivers getting a tip usually, the small cars holding four passengers were drawn by one horse,the large cars holding a dozen had two horses,

These visitors being mainly from Lancashire we spoke of as cotton balls and we thought ourselves quite superior to them.

In those days there were no trains,or busses,or bicycles,or motor cars. If you wanted to go anywhere you must go afoot or get a horse or trap but people at that time were trained up to walk.The long walks made them taller and stronger, A ten mile walk to Douglas and back was hardly worth mentioning. We children had to walk more than two miles to school and thought nothing about it, in summer we often took a longer way to school,climbing up out of the valley to the old ridge road at the Kew from which we could get a glimpse of the great outer world, We saw the wide sea and perhaps Scotland and Ireland,we saw Peel Bay with the herring fleet(which had come back from the mysterious beyond) lying at anchor busy selling the nights catch to the "fresh buyers". These were big smacks with one high mast and a mainsail as big as a field, they lay at anchor with five or six luggers clustered round delivering the herrings while other luggers lay near waiting their turn. When loaded these smacks hoisted sail and away round the Calf to Liverpool and the great world beyond the seas. The fishing boats were at that time mostly lugger rigged,the nickey rig was just coming in. Occasionally the fresh buyer would be a little paddle steamer possibly a Liverpool tug, These would clatter and splash away with much noise leaving behind them a long trail of foam. The screw propeller had not then come in, nor had the sailing ships gone out, all the manx steamers were paddle boats, The thrill of these sights well repaid us for the extra mile of walk to school. We were like puppies stretching to look over the rim of our basket,. All my life since I have wanted to look ovmr the rim of my basket.

Along this valley road passed all sorts and conditions of men, some of these I remember others forgotten.

One regular traveller was Tommy Vondy, walking barefoot at great speed, he was a government messenger or as what would now call it a despatch rider only Tommy never rode, He took messages from the seat of government at Castletown to Ramsey and the north there bring neither telegrams or telephone, coach or other means of communication, The post office was slow and did not deliver letters, The messenger was speedy and no doubt cheap since he had to walk bare foot and save shoe leather.

All our letters had to be called for at the post office two miles away, You had to knock at the window where one small pane of glass was replaced by a hinged board, any letters were handed out through this little opening, if you did not call a letter might lie waiting for you for weeks unless a message by some caller was sent to you by the postmaster.

In those days people did not travel so much or mix as nowadays and did not get their corners knocked off to become as like each other as pebbles on a beach. They lived apart and developed character .the country was full of "characters". Curlad the lhiou yharn was one of them, when young he had been "pressed" and was out in the peninsular wars under Wellington. then he was sent to the low countries. He was a very intelligent man. He had a great hatred of dogs the reason he gave was that before the battle of Quatre Bras and Waterloo, in a secret night sortie a dog had given the alarm to the French who opened fire and shot off poor Corlet's arm. It was replaced by an iron hook. He had an old grey horse with an equally old cart, Corlett used to walk in front with the hook in the reins, he was bent foward and appeared to be dragging the horse after him. Corlett had a landlord who was reputed to be a little "close" in money matters, when he went to pay his rent the landlord gave him a receipt and then turning his back so that he could not see what his hand was doing, gave Corlett a sixpence by way of discount.

Another character was "Juan Paddy in thault" (John son of Paddy and lame) one of his legs was shorter than the other so he went dot and carry one. In the Island where there were so many families of the same name it was very necessary to distinguish each man from others of the same name. This was done by adding the name of his farm if he owned one as Quine Lammal (Lambfell) or simply "lammal" if well known, or his trade as Taggart the grocer or his occupation as Shimmin the joiner,or by some peculiarity as Tommy the wart, or Brew the wallet. This custom was formerly almost universal in the island and has not yet entirely died out.

In the eighteen sixties there was no organised charity worthy the name, the poor had a very hard time and had to beg or starve, poor people who now would be in a home or mental hospital went about like the birds. Private charity was however widespread, the poor people had regular rounds of customers where they called at more or less regular intervals and were relieved not often by money but sometimes by a meal, a other food such as oatmeal or barley cake or cheese or cold meat. They were very rarely sent empty away.

Some of these might be members of ancient families who had "come down in the world", these did not lose their ancient pride and might condesend to do a little work in the garden, they could tell the latest thing in newses and knowing all the families would be able to give the true inwards of the story.

Most of these wanderers were simply beggars, one of these was Dan as naskorn, he wore a top hat and a frock coat, both very old and green with age. Dan was a very tall big man with a grim and melancholy face, pale and not over clean, he had a bag or wallet carried by a string round his shoulder - and partly hidden under his frock coat, he had a pronounced stoop and looked the very embodiment of grim and menacing misery, his voice was slow and sleechy, all children were very much afraid of him.

One day I had been catching trout in the river above Ballaleece Bridge,tiring of this I cut across the fields to get to the Poortown road which was deep and narrow like a big ditch, on climbing the hedge to drop into the road I heard a voice and cautiously looking over I saw Dan down below examining the the contents of his bag as he sat beside the hedge, he was talking to himself and seemed to be cursing the meanness of someone who had given him too little, in sheer terror I flew across the fields to the river.

Another character was old John who had many ups and downs, a member of a fine old family he had come down in the world and gone to England. There he had worked as a gardener; as an iron-ore miner at Cleator Moor; had driven a barge horse on a canal and when getting old had returned to the island and lived as a sort of 'gaberlunzie' man going round on the houses where the people knew his family.

Another character was Tom Jack John, he appeared to be half witted and had little or no voice. A song was made about him and Bella Barrule who was the very essence of timid helplessness, Tom Jack John was described as singing like a thrush and Bella as boxing his ears. This was in the character of manx wit at that time. It might be described as sarcastic absurdity. The same mental attitude is shown in the St. Stephen's day song which the boys used to sing than, the wren the smallest of the birds could only be hunted by a crowd, armed with sticks and stones, it could only be carried home in the brewers big dray, it could only be cooked in the brewers big pan, it was a terrible bird. This characture in reverse has not yet quite died out in the island.

Of the beggar women who called regularly I can remember only two Rosie McEvoy and Nanny Sidland, both of them seemed to be unbalanced perhaps mentally weak and nowadays would be cared for in a home. Some of these had a sort of local habitation others seemed to drift all over the island, poor things, they all suffered "great tribulation" I hope that in the end things were evened up to them.

In those days every house had clear cut characters as inhabitants, there was Mrs Paulie a charming lady with a golden heart, perhaps a little careless in matters of dress and appearance and perhaps in washing but in other respects a gem. When 8 years old I went to Sunday school and was given a card to collect for the missioneries. I called on Mrs Paul who greeted me with "come in chree,come in", she made me sit on a stool by the fire and got me a "thumb butty" this was a fresh soda cake with a lump of butter spread over it with the thumb. Then she got down from a hole in the wall her cutty clay pipe lit up and sat down on another stool for a smoke and a cooish, when I had finished my butty and she her pipe. She sent me away with her blessing, not a word about the poor missionaries or money, it was a social call giving pleasure to both parties and giving me a sweet memory for life.

80 years ago I saw the last of many things which have now disappeared, thatched houses and barns were quite common. they were snug and warm and had the peat fires which were common then, gave little risk of fire, they were warmer in winter and cooler in summer than slated houses which replaced them. They had flag or earth floors the fireplace was a flag under the chimney which had an iron rod across it from which the slowrie hung down,on which to sling the kettle or pot or the potoven.

The way the roof was formed is interesting, from the walls to the ridge were the rafters which might be branches or sawn timber. Across these were more or less straight branches from six to nine inches apart, over these were spread "scraas" these were tough turves about three feet long by a foot wide and two inches thick, they were placed grass side up. On them came the thatch preferably of wheat straw. Beginning at the walls and then layer upon layer up to the ridge pole. The thatch was fastened down in the Irish fashion with "sugganes" or ropes of twisted straw tied down to pointed stones projecting from the walls for that purpose. The English thatch is tidier and looks better, it is fastened down by long briars fastened to the thatch by long hairpins of briar, a fashion that never seems to have reached the island, it is seen at its best in Wilts Devon and elsewhere.

Often in the bedrooms of the Manx thatched cottages the underside of the scraas showing would be whitewashed like the walls. If left unwashed it got gradually dark and smoke begrimed from the peat smoke but had a fine healthy clean smell. Cottages usually had only one story but some had a 'laff' (loft) with a small window in the gable.

At that time most cottages and farms burnt peat as a fuel with (bons) of ling or gorse to quicken up the heat when baking. No house was without a bellows. A turf stack near the house gave a comfortable sort of look. Most of the farmers went out to the mountains in the early summer to cut peat. It was made into little piles and left to dry for a few months and carted home in the autumn. Going out to get the peat was a sort of picnic where everyone could be useful in cutting or carrying to the drying ground.

There was very little turf cutting in the island except for scraas, it was nearly all peat. The old form of peat was eighteen inches long and three inches square, fifty peats made a load by the old laws. On the Yorkshire Wolds turves are commonly cut from surfaces where ling or heather has grown, peat like in Ireland is cut from the bog below the surface. There are special spades used for. the purpose, as the use of peat died out and stoves came in the size and shape of the peats were made anyhow.

The old peat fireplace was on the hearth. The method of cooking was very different from now. There were no modern ranges or cookers, but the grate was coming in gradually. In the old houses the cooking tools were a griddle, a kettle an iron pot with three legs and a potoven with a lid. They all had handles to catch on a hook on the slowrie hanging down from the chimney.

The hook could be moved up and down the slowrie to be nearer or further from the fire. On the griddle oat and barley cakes were baked. In the pot broth or meat or poultry was boiled: in the pot oven, bread and cakes were easily cooked, the fire could be swept to one side the dough placed on the hearth and the potoven inverted over it and the fire heaped over the oven. The results were excellent. The potoven was in shape much like a preserving pan with a flat bottom, it was made of heavy cast iron,and had a strong lid.

Another universal tool which I had almost overlooked was the gridiron. It was in daily use. The herring, fresh or salted was one of the most common and most useful food and the gridiron was the best way of cooking them. A meal of barley cakes with fresh butter and a roast herring or two with tea and fresh cream was an appetising and healthy meal and supplied its full quota of proteins fats and carbohybrates. In that respect no modern meal is better. The routine of eating in those days was very much as follows: breakfast was mainly of porrige made with home grown oats turned into oatmeal at the nearest mill. Manx oatmeal differed from the present day oatmeal, it was not white but very slightly brown due to the oats being not only dried on the mill kiln but heated longer (almost toasted) to bring out the flavour. It was almost cooked already and could be eaten raw. It was kept in a barrel and pressed down hard and solid to keep qut the air, the top layer being skim'd off as it was used, in this way the meal kept quite fresh until next harvest. This firm porrige was eaten with milk or syrup or sugar if milk was scarce. Dinner was commonly of potatoes and herring, tea was usually with barley or oatcake and an appetiser of roasted herring or a slice of toasted dried liver or an egg or two. Supper was usually of porrige. On sundays there would be eggs with ham for breakfast, broth with a fowl and a piece of ham and dumb dumplings and a cabbage boiled in it and a pudding after it for dinner and for tea scones and cakes with a cob having a few raisins or carroway seeds in it, and again porrige for supper.

It will be seen that the Manx people did not get their strong and sturdy bodies on a poor or insufficient diet. The Manx housewife at that time had a very busy life there was no lonliness even in the remotest farm, little farms and crofts were everywhere, and the woman kept these going when the man was away "at the herrings". There was no baker to help her out, she made oatcake, barley cake, cobs of flour, scones, soda cake using carbonate of soda and buttermilk, milked the cows, fed the pigs and the poultry and turned out her family at church or chapel clean and well dressed.

At most of the farms they made cheese entirely for home consumption, it was mild and rich but was eaten long before it could get ripe and develop the pine flavour of cheddar or wensleydale.

Some housewives would send a stone or so of flour with some butter to the baker in the town to be made into biscuits, Manx flour made good biscuits bud lacked sufficient protein to make big spongy loaves.

The getting in "the stock" of herrings was a great oocasion, about July when herrings were at their best and fattest and were plentiful and cheap forty or sixty for a shilling, everyone was early astir, the cart was thorough washed clean and started off to Peel to bring home the stock two or three hundred herrings of 120 to the hundred. Then the herring barrel would be washed clean,and the children sent off to the brews to cut and bring home braken and fern, out of doors a place in the yard would be swept clean and thickly strewn with the fresh fern and braken, then the cart would arrive with its box full of fat and shining fish to be "kicked" right in the middle of the green carpet, while the sack of fresh salt was placed beside the clean herring barrel ready for work. Then the busy hours began, cleaning gutting and packing the fish in the barrel with layers of salt between until the whole had been cleand up and the braken taken to the midden.

Herrings fried,boiled,and roasted, and kippered that is split peppered and salted and dried in the sun, and a stock which would last until next summer safely in the barrel. It was a sort of fishy harvest home to be thankful for. A good herring is equal in nutritional value to at least half a pound of the best steak, a roast herring with potatoes and buttermilk is a perfectly balanced meal, barley as a food then so common is now too much neglected. It gives great vigour and makes a race fertile. Burns was quite true when he sang - "wha in a brulsie will first call a parley, never the lads 0 the bannocks o barley".

Bannocks of oat or barley meal were thick cakes about half an inch or so deep. Eighty years ago manx farms were practically self contained and independant of foreign importations, the country mills then so common, and now departed, could make wheat flour, fine or coarse, fine or coarse oatmeal or groats barley meal or pearl barley to take the place of rice. A farmer could send to the mill a sack or less of his home grown grain of any sort and get his wishes carried out. The skilled miller has now almost died out.

Manx wheat is white and very sweet the very best kind for making biscuit then widely used by the Manx fishermen who went after the herrings from the south of Ireland to the outer hebrides. It lacks protein however and and will not make a large spongy loaf. Then the baker came along. he bought flour made from foreign wheat, it was cheaper,had more gluten, made a large spongy loaf,he took it with cakes to the very door.

The housewife fell for this and gradually ceased to use the product of the grain grown on her own farm, The home grown food became no longer fashionable, the little mills losing their trade dropped out one by one skilled millers were no longer trained. Those left were not able to buy the products of ther little farms and act as merchants. They gradually limited their operations to the crushing of cattle food.

The result is that we are now being mainly fed by products from across the seas. Our tastes have been vitiated by sweets, we are no longer willing to eat the food produced from our own farms. We must even buy food for our cattle from over the seas. We have become spend-thrifts. This change has taken place in my own lifetime.

When I was a boy the use of the flail had not ceased though threshing mills worked by water or by horse power were coming into use. The flail was two sticks loosely joined together by strong but flexible leather thongs, one stick about as thick as the wrist was made of heavy strong wood sugh as blackthorn or oak, the other stick longer and lighter was used as the handle. To swing the heavy stick round the head and bring it down with a bang on the heads of a sheaf or two of corn lying on the floor of the barn required some skill and practice in the gaining of which a few blows on the head might occur. Two men could thresh together standing opposite to each other and striking alternately, while boys brought the sheaves and took away the threshed straw. Winnowing was done by tossing up the grain where there was a draught to blow away the chaff either in a doorway or in the open air.The tossing was done by a dollan this was a sort of glorified tambourine, made by stretching a sheepskin over a hoop. It had many other uses such as holding oatcakes or dried gibbins(sand eels) on the latts(laths) which were fastened to the joists of the kitchen ceiling a dry place where cheese, stockfish or dried liver could be kept ready to hand, along with the hams and bacon hanging on hooks in the joists.

Corn was then cut mainly with the scythe, though in hilly places the reaping hook was still used. It was like a sharp pointed sickle, I remember clearly hearing a man say that he was going along to see this wonderful new cutting mill at work, he was referring to the now almost obsolete old fashioned reaper,drawn by a horse.

Harvest fields were then a busy and cheerful sight, the scythe men marching with steady swing one after another each leaving a swayth behind him which the women coming after gathered into sheaves to put on bands of corn stalks which the boys and girls made and put on the ground a little ahead of the gatherers. The band was pulled tightly round the sheap,the ends twisted tightly round each other and then tucked in under the tight band so firm and strong that the sheaf would stand aood deal of knocking about.

After being stooked for some time the corn was built into little round stacks called "thurrans" to stay until they were carted into the stackyard or barn.

Now the merry harvesters with their songs and laughter have all gone. One man with a self-binder motor goes into the field alone and in a few hours the corn is all lying in rows of sheaves tightly tied up with twine.

Harvest is no longer a festival but a commercial job linked up with an engineering works hundreds or thousands of miles away.

When I was a boy the cows were all milked by women, the milkmaid with her rosy cheeks and her strong arms was a reality. She also churned generaly with a tall upright churn with a plunger which she worked up and down.

She made the butter and the cheese and had crocks of cream and buttermilk - the best of all drinks when a little sour. For it was meat and drink and physic too. Now the dairy maid has retired to paint her lips and powder her nose and manicure her hands while the milking is done by the oil engine and suction pipes and the butter comes from New Zealand.

Another thing which has gone out is the feeding of gorse to cows, this was in those days a common practice, the gorse has a most delightful smell and the gorse fed to the cows was beleived to make them healthy and also to give a particularly good flavour to the butter. The young gorse was carried home in "barts" (a bundle tied up with rope and carried on the back) it was placed in a large trough about 6ft by 3 ft having strong boards at the bottom. There it was bruised by a great wooden mallet with a head about a foot long and four or five inches in diameter fixed on a long shaft, the gorse was reduced to a green pulp which the cows ate greedily.

In later years I saw in West Wales a field of gorse about a foot high grown specially grown for cattle food, to be cut with a reaper and crushed by rolling between rolls.

In the sixties it was a common thing to grow potatoes not in ridges but in beds about four feet wide. Some manure was placed on the ground to the extent of the proposed bed, on this the potatoes were set, then a trench about a foot deep was dug along the side of the bed and the soil spread on the potatoes and flattened down.

They were called lazy beds but grew very good crops, this method is still in use in the West of Ireland. It suits small patches of ground where a horse or even the donkey of West Ireland has no room to drag a plough it is a poor mans method.