Welcome to the Isle of Melody
From The Daily Mail, published in The Camp Herald in 1925
One comes to the Isle of Man and as a species of merchandise – raw material for the Islands main industry of providing pleasure and one is turned out the finished article – a happy holidaymaker. We are being polished up and completed in scores of thousands a week just now (trade is exceptionally brisk this year), with a brown tint put on our cheeks, a sparkle into our eyes, and a spring into our steps. Occasionally hearts are extracted in the process, but we commonly get someone else’s in exchange.
It is a jolly ship in red, white, chocolate, and black that brings the merchandise, and a jolly crowd welcomes you at the harbour (on a rough day I’m convinced there’s an unholy joy in these friendly enquiries as to the passage). Probably the crowd is laughing and singing, so that your first belief is that IOM means Isle of Mirth or Isle of Melody. And if ere your hotel is reached you are humming “show me the way to go home” (you don’t mean that) or “the toy drum major,” the hotel boots will probably make it a duet as he handles your bags. That is the spirit of Douglas. It is the Peter Pan of resorts.
Distinctive Resorts
Coming to the Isle of Man does not, of course, necessarily mean Douglas. The advantage of this waist coat-pocket whirls – round which a sweetly running car will take you in a few hours – is that not only is every type of scenery – mountain, sea, river, glen, and garden – to be found, but resorts with characters distinctive, so that one may say if Douglas is a vivacious M’am’selle Peel is a matron, Port St Mary a modest unassuming college girl, Port Erin a pretty and rather dashing tennis player (one feels sure she is engaged), and Ramsey a trifle bucksome genial, sports loving, and everybody’s friend. Folk, I understand, visit Mistress Ramsey year after year as regularly as they eat their Christmas dinner.
But it is too vivacious Douglas with its lamp encircled bay their romantics compare with Naples, that the majority of the Islands yearly 500,000 of holiday makers come. Very youthful is the spirit. Summertime has made the day long, but Douglas stretches it beyond compare. One bathes may be at 6 or 7am, and past midnight strolls the Promenade singing snatches of
Semolina, I love you, I love you, I do;
Semolina, there’s room in my little canoe.
It is all desperately romantic. She can wear a vivid striped frock like a duchess, and the sun turns her brown, shingles head to auburn gold. She carries a tennis racket almost as regularly as she used to carry her handkerchief bag. He bears his throat, and grows bold in the merry sun.
Dancing during the showery days has been booming – you dance to the tunes that are being sung – “I know that someone loves me,” “after the storm,” “all alone,” and so forth “the spot dance” at the villa marina, where couples are singled out by a lamp light beam and prizes presented, is most popular. But there are other dance halls too – among them one on the edge of Port Erin’s lovely bay, where as you waltz, you can watch the westering sun going down in a cloud of glory.
Happy Island! You may reduce your age here more readily than your golf handicap.
Image: Collection of J. Drower