Report from Arbory Women’s InstituteMrs Sarah Philips welcomed us to our open meeting and said how pleased she was to see our guests.

She told us that the visit to see ’Victoria and Abdul’ had been very successful with 14 members there who had all enjoyed both the lunch and the film.

In view of this, we may have other similar visits to the cinema in the future.

We had all brought food to the meeting so Mrs Philips suggested that we eat first before settling down to hear the speaker, Mr Jack Kaighin, began his magic lantern slide show.

Mr Kaighin began by telling us about his magic lantern which dated from 1895.

It would at that time have been powered by gas, which sounded fairly hazardous.

He said that a man in Port Erin had got in touch with him to ask if he would be interest in some slides so Mr Kaighin visited him and agreed to have them. He found himself with 500, of which about 60 were of the early 1900s Isle of Man.

Mr Kaighin had brought pictures of Port Erin and Port St Mary and several in which he could not identify the location.

He lives in in Laxey, and was not as familiar with southern views.

He hoped that we might help with identification as it was difficult to know where the photographer had been standing and so much had changed but we did our best.

Between slides Mr Kaighin told us anecdotes about what we were seeing.

He then showed some pictures of a street in Ramsey which seemed hardly to have altered and which gave us an opportunity to see the people and clothes of the time.

Everyone, male and female wore a hat, so the wind must have been pretty much like today!

Another slide was of the swimming pool in Ramsey where an intrepid diver seemed to be suspended horizontally in mid air above the no doubt freezing water.

Mr Kaighin remarked that it looked like the prelude to belly flop of all time.

Finally, we were shown 12 hand-tinted slides (like the box sets of today) which told a story of emigrants setting sail, braving storms, crossing the equator and ending up (somewhat depleted in numbers) reaching their destination on a raft.

We all enjoyed the presentation both for the Manx scenes and the fishing scenes which also showed the lifeboat with a crew of rowing men - unimaginable in the Irish Sea.

The vote of thanks was given by Mr Roger Philips who thanked Mr Kaighin for an enjoyable and informative evening. He added that the diving man would haunt his dreams for some time.

Our next meeting will be held at Arbory Methodist Hall on November 9 at 7.15pm.

Sheena Gilbert