I heard an interview recently undertaken by Culture Vannin with the former chief financial officer at the Treasury, John Cashen, and, as usual, it contained spadefuls of common sense.

I also recently caught up with former Chief Minister Sir Miles Walker and heard comments from him when he was picking music on the Marc Tyley morning show on Manx Radio.

Both these well-known people usually refrain from commenting on topical matters, which I consider to be the best policy.

Since being invited to write this ‘light’ piece weekly, I have generally adopted this principle, though I occasionally wander!

I’d like to make a slight exception here, after listening to both of these former senior figures in island life, and add my own twopence worth.

Sometimes we tend to forget where we have come from over the last many years as an island.

Work was very seasonal for the greater part of the last century and many people had to leave the land of their birth to find employment suited to their skills.

A sound decision was made to diversify our economy long before I was elected and as a result successful light engineering was established. It continues to provide year-round secure and well-paid employment opportunities.

The island has had to reinvent itself and continue diversification on a number of occasions.

In the 1960s and 1970s our reliance on tourism was challenged as the world opened up new opportunities with guaranteed good weather for those for whom this was the primary requirement.

So tourism was one industry that required to be more focused on areas of strength, such as heritage and ‘special events’ from a sporting or cultural perspective.

The industry has continued to adapt to market requirements in terms of standards required for today’s customers and to diversify into adventure-based activities and so on.

I really enjoyed my 10 years as ‘Minister of Fun’ and worked with a number of excellent dedicated officers and I mention one area here.

I took direct responsibility for the ‘special events unit’, which worked closely with event organisers, to give them logistical support and more.

The chief officer at that time, who had a great team with him, was Harry Martland. He came with a lifetime of experience in the hospitality industry.

He was also a former member of Douglas lifeboat crew and volunteered on sail training vessels for young people.

I recall him driving a converted bus in the form of a Steam Packet boat around the UK promoting the island as the destination of choice against fierce competition from others.

He would organise the Isle of Man stand at exhibitions in the UK and Ireland against others with much larger budgets.

That same competition exists today and the one constant I had reported to me as minister was the cost of access, which remains a factor for those considering our island against others with similar offerings.

Harry has recently celebrated his 40th wedding anniversary with his wife Fran. I’m sure I speak for many when I send them best wishes and sincere thanks for all he has done to promote our island in such a positive manner.

When I was elected in 1985, we had 3,500 people out of work from a lower working population than today so the challenges were acute. But with a ‘Team Isle of Man’ ethic and working with the private sector and employee organisations this was tackled head on.

Sir Miles (pictured below) and his ministers came forward with a policy entitled ‘the development of a prosperous and caring society’.

I believe this remains as relevant today.

One of its components was to encourage a very focused strategy of inward migration to the island of younger economically-active people and to encourage business enterprises.

For it is successful businesses that provide the secure well-paid employment that avoids the misery of unemployment that we encountered in the early years.

Today’s issues are the reverse. We have had, for a considerable time, full employment to the extent that we have acute skill shortages in a number of areas.

We need to ensure that our young people are equipped with the skills needed to secure the available employment opportunities.

The island has the strengths of a safe environment in which to bring up a family.

With first-class sporting and cultural facilities, we require adequate affordable housing, a good health service and a thriving night-time economy to meet the needs of the skilled young people we want to attract.

It seems to me that we don’t always demonstrate the hunger to succeed that was evident when there were large numbers of unemployed. We live in a very competitive world and no one owes us a living.

At election time all candidates profess the desire to eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy but once elected have we (and I include my generation here) seriously addressed this? We have the opportunity as a small jurisdiction, with powers that others envy, to be ahead of the game in attracting and encouraging business. But we also have the dichotomy that some in public life have become completely risk-averse, undertaking on occasion over consultation on some matters, which takes such a long time that we risk losing out to our competitors.

We live in an unstable, far-from-perfect world so it would be inevitable that we would not get everything right on every occasion but we could make some real wins with a cooperative approach including the expertise available on our island.

My final comment on this today is that those in senior positions in public life, whether official or elected member, have a responsibility to communicate clearly.

I acknowledge the legitimate public scrutiny that both are under but appearances in the media with the ‘real story’ are of great importance in terms of explanation of the policy or whatever.

There has unfortunately been a little reluctance of late by some officials or elected members to engage.

This really isn’t helpful or good enough and in the past given the nature of our small island it was always a prerequisite.

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I attended the annual junior school public speaking competition promoted by the Rotary Club of Douglas at Arbory School.

The judges were Mrs Anne Clarke, chair of the Manx Music Festival, Mrs Roz Dargan of St Ninian’s High School and Ms Jane Falconer of the club.

The winners were Arbory School represented by Charlie Williams, Jonny Williams and Ethan Harrison with ‘Should we still study Shakespeare today?’, second were Lyla Jones, Gracie Evans and Rihanna-Rose Furlong from Ballacottier School with ‘Artificial Intelligence – friend or foe?’, in third position came Cronk y Berry School with Yosif Tsvetlov, Robbie Kilsby and Thomas MacLaren with ‘Getting to the point’ and Suki Downward, Hope Wilson and Annie Jennings came in fourth representing Marown School with ‘The importance of kindness’.

As always the young people were exceptional and represented their schools well.

The prizes were presented by Mr Ian Faulds, president of the Rotary Club of Douglas. Special thanks to Arbory head teacher Mr Ayres and team for hosting and providing lovely home-made cakes and cookies. Also to members of Arbory School choir who entertained during the interval.