Last week we touched on the subject of the beginning of the end of mass tourism in the Isle of Man.

Times were changing and, once the word got around and folk got the taste for foreign parts, it was a case of stand back and mind the rush.

Now I was born in 1940. Yes I know, I’ll be 80 this year, and my earliest memories were often about the ’season’ and the ’visitors’.

My father had come back from his part in the war to resume command of his family. Thankfully, he had survived safe and undamaged and as promised, his old job in the timber yard was waiting for him to restart his life.

When me and Brown Eyes started our family, I just took for granted the miracle that became tiny human beings.

They were born, and we looked after them. They learned how to walk, they learned how to talk, and we watched them grow.

I was quick to realise the truth, that there’s far more to it than that.

But in the case of my father and I, we didn’t meet until I was five.

Just imagine how that must have felt. By the time that we had set eyes on each other, not only could I talk, I could read and write. And not only that, I was house trained and had started school.

It was a weird enough feeling for me, but it must have been very strange for him. Fortunately, if nothing else we are adaptable which, believe me, is just as well.

How do you think I felt when less than a year later my mother, who had vanished for a few days, arrived home with something wrapped up in a blanket.

It took more than a couple of deep breaths for me to absorb the fact that, right out of the blue, I had a new baby brother.

By the time I was about 10, I had began to realise that about the time of the school holidays, there were flocks of strange people about the place.

They spoke with different accents and they seemed to be everywhere. They were the visitors and they were on holiday.

As far as we were concerned, to go on holiday to another country was something that other folk did.

To us, holidays meant that we didn’t have to go to school.

I don’t think that I knew anyone who actually went on a holiday. The nearest that I ever came to a holiday was the once a year, father-and-son special Steam Packet day trip to Liverpool.

Usually a day trip meant that you sailed out in the morning to an exotic destination such as Fleetwood or Belfast and arrived back in Douglas in the evening.

But the ’special’ day trip would sail from Douglas to Liverpool at midnight on Friday and, after spending the day in Liverpool, return to the island at midnight on Saturday.

I don’t know how we managed to fill such a long day.

I can remember the early morning walk up town and the queue outside Woolworths while we waited for the cafeteria to open at eight o’clock. And I can remember trying not to be greedy, slowly sliding my brown plastic tray past dish after dish of breakfast delights.

We always had a ride around the docks on the overhead electric tram, and we always had a trip across the river on the Mersey ferry.

It was a long day, but it was worth every minute. It was our holiday.

On the island the visitor was most families’ life blood and our main source of income.

For the average Pully lad it was your pocket money and your education in the skills of life. You learned how to work and how to watch. You learned to respect the rules and seize the opportunities.

I think that our generation was privileged.

We had our education, our health service and our jobs.

Sadly, today, far too much is taken for granted

There’s not many of us left.