My mother, who passed away some years ago, was a regular churchgoer and a devout Christian.

She was an Anglican and, in her early days on the island, she worshipped at St Barnabas, which stood between Fort Street and Lord Street and was strategically placed next to the bus stop for Pulrose.

St B’s was my first Sunday School. But when mother changed her allegiance to Pulrose Methodist church, so did her three children.

Father was not a churchgoer, preferring to spend his Sundays ’in pursuit of game’ as the magistrate described the crime when he was fined the princely sum of 10 shillings for pursuing the fore-mentioned without first getting permission from the land owner.

Mother took her faith seriously. She truly believed in her God, and in times of personal or family crisis she would be guided by Him to see her and her family out of whatever situation had occurred.

As well as her faith and her devotion, she was blessed with a sense of humour, and I well remember a story that she often told.

There was a family who lived in a low-lying area that was prone to flooding.

Recently, there had been a spell of very heavy rainfall that had lasted for many days and the flood waters had risen to such an extent that the family had been forced to climb onto the roof of their house to avoid being washed away.

The coastguard had arrived and called out to the family to climb into their boat and be taken to safety.

The mother had replied ’Don’t worry about us, we will be safe, the Lord will provide’.

Then a helicopter hovered alongside the house to rescue them.

Once again the mother had said that the Lord would save them.

The lifeboat was next and was met with the same reply.

The inevitable happened, the flood water rose, covered the house, and the family drowned.

They arrived at the gates of Heaven where God was waiting to welcome them.

The mother cried out ’Why did you not save us?’

God, who was just a touch put out with her tone of voice, replied: ’I sent you the coastguard, the lifeboat, and a helicopter. What more could I do?’

I had decided that the subject for this week’s column was going to be global warming, and the way that our planet was at long last beginning to fight back against the centuries of abuse and exploitation that we, the human race, had been guilty of committing.

Then hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas.

It’s just not possible for us, in our safe little bubble, to imagine how a disaster of such dimensions must feel, when it happens on the other side of the world.

But if we believe what the scientists are predicting for the Earth, then I really do fear for the future of mankind.

We are, as they say, already beginning to feel the draught.

In some parts of the UK there were a couple of spells of bad weather that saw the equivalent of two months of rainfall in only two days, and here on the Isle of Man in the middle of what should have been our most predictable and reliable time of the weather year, the TT races and the Festival of Motorcycling had great difficulty in managing to squeeze in four laps between them.

However, as often happens, I run out of space and global warming will have to wait. Nothing new there then, I hear you mutter, and I have to agree.

But did you know that this column is Pullyman 300?

We’ve been together for just short of six years and it has been a pleasure and a privilege. I thank you all for the many kind words and messages that make a wobbly old wreck with Parkinson’s Disease feel a great deal better.

A decade ago Pullyman - aka Michael Cowin - was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, a condition that affects people in different ways. Michael discovered writing and Island Life is featuring some of his musings. Sometimes topical, sometimes nostalgic, read about life as seen through the eyes of Pullyman