Veteran Manx journalist Terry Cringle has written many stories about the island’s governors during a remarkable career lasting more than 70 years.

So the newsman, who is 90 in January, said it was an ’honour’ to be invited by the current Lieutenant Governor Sir Richard Gozney and Lady Diana Gozney to attend Government House for tea to mark his retirement this year.

Sir Richard said he enjoyed reading Mr Cringle’s historical pieces in the Examiner and added: ’For me and on behalf of all my predecessors going back seven decades I would like to say thank you for everything you have done for the media and enlightening us new boys.’

Asked what it meant for him to be invited to the home of the Lieutenant Governor and his wife he said: ’I regard this as an honour and this is the Queen’s representative and so to some extent I feel that she must have said: ’’Give Terry Cringle a go.’’ ’

Mr Cringle admitted he remembered ’a lot’ of the governors he had reported on since he entered journalism in the late 1940s.

’I enjoyed meeting all of them one way or another. Some I found more interesting than others but this is a more interesting governor (Sir Richard) than you usually get. And as I said before this is an honour to be here today.’

Asked if he would ever consider returning to print and broadcast journalism he said: ’I’ve finished work, no more thank you. But I like to read my paper every day up at the barracks’ (that’s the term he uses for his home at Ian Cannell Court, Douglas).

Talking about deadlines, a crucial part of a journalist’s job, he said: ’The deadlines were good for you. You just had to do it.’

Mr Cringle was also joined for the tea by representatives from Isle of Man Newspapers and Manx Radio.

Mr Cringle has always insisted he has been a ’very, very lucky man on many many counts’ and says ’family life is the most important thing in the world’. He said his son and daughter and three grandchildren would be delighted by his special invitation from Sir Richard.

Mr Cringle’s childhood was at a holiday boarding house run by his parents, Studley House on Queen’s Promenade, Douglas and he went to school at nearby St Thomas’s.

As well as writing for the Examiner, including compiling Times Past, he also worked for a string of newspapers in the UK. He always had an eye for humour and his Cringle columns were always eagerly read by readers.

He was also a broadcaster with Border Television as well as Manx Radio.