Have you noticed the adverts on the telly for settees and sofas?

If you’ve switched the telly on at any time in the last 10 years, that’s all that you will have seen. They’re either boring, or get up your nose.

I often wonder just how impressionable the general public really is, with regards to television advertising.

Just think about the big three. Double glazing and conservatories, new kitchens, and what we used to call, three piece suites.

The one common denominator in all of these products, they are always on special offer that must end on Saturday.

Advertising is so huge these days, that the advertising business in itself must contribute as much to the gross national product as does the manufacture and sale of the goods that they want us to buy.

But it’s the sale of the advertising slots that pays for the programmes that we watch.

I remember the old days and proper advertising.

When you were on your way from Pulrose to Douglas, you would go past the Power Station and turn right at the junction with the Peel to Douglas main road. In those days there was a halt sign long since replaced by traffic lights.

On the opposite side of the road there is the petrol station and long, long ago there was a row of shops.

One of these was a cycle shop belonging to a man called Bill Carberry.

Bill was a cheerful sort of bloke, who had a slight structural defect which was known as a club foot.

Another business operating from these shops was Stan Clarke’s grocery shop.

But interesting as all this waffle may well be, it has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of advertising.

Just to the right of these shops, on the Douglas side, there was a section of plain wall.

The Palace and Derby Castle Company, who operated the Douglas cinemas, used to advertise current and forth-coming, big screen attractions.

But the one memory that has never left me was the slogan: ’Don’t take your wife for granted, take her to the pictures.’

Now, time-wise, I’m talking about the 1950s, long years before the advertising that we know today, began.

It’s hard to believe, but visual advertising was simply large sheets of paper, hand painted with the message of the day, and stuck on to wooden hoardings or cement walls with wallpaper paste.

Now to have the required visual impact, these posters had to be very large, and very high off the ground.

In Douglas, next to what was once Scott’s Bistro, and in the block that is now HSBC, there was a poster maker and sign writers called Chilcott’s.

One of their employees was this absolute hero of all time called Victor Lyon.

Victor was the man who tackled the big jobs.

He would set out with his long, multi-section extension ladder, a bucket of wallpaper paste, a type of satchel hung round his neck and a long handled brush.

The ladder had four or five sections linked together with ropes and pulleys.

This allowed the ladder to extend evenly and the heavy bucket of paste was fitted with large metal ’S’ hooks to hang over the ladder rungs.

The satchel held the painted sections in correct order and the long-handled brush allowed him to paste each piece at full stretch.

To see this man about 30 foot up a ladder painting a section of a paper sign about four foot by six foot with paste from his bucket and his long handled brush, was fairly interesting to say the least.

To see the picture grow as he joined up the next pieces, was miraculous.

Now I could watch his style of advertising on telly, any time. He could do a whole series on health and safety.

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