Richard Butt, editor, writes this week’s Viewpoint column

I walked along the prom in Douglas the other day and noticed a horse tram stop sign for ’Derby Castle’.

Derby Castle? Oh, yes, the entertainment complex demolished before I was born.

Perhaps it should move with the times and say ’Aquadrome’ or ’Summerland’? Oh, hang on. Maybe a bit late for those too.

OK, yes, the MER stop, outside the Strathallan pub (sorry, Terminus Tavern), is still called Derby Castle and that makes sense because ... Nope. Can’t work that out.

The MER takes me on my ’used-to-be’ tour. I realised it was that when I took a friend, new to the island, on the line.

That used to be a swimming pool, I said pointing to the left as we set off. That was Summerland, the Douglas Bay Hotel was where that vile monstrosity is now, over there used to be White City, that used to be the Majestic Hotel, that used to be a pub called the Groudle.

You get my drift.

I suspect a lot of us use names of places that no longer exist to pinpoint locations, especially when we’re talking to people who grew up here.

Why do I call the bit at the end of Loch Prom (Greensill’s Corner) the ’Rendezvous’?

Because there was a cafe there where hip and trendy dudes went when my dad was young. I cannot remember it. But I still call it that.

And I know where the Alex Inn was but I have no memory of it. Ditto the Ballacraine pub, of course.

The Liverpool Arms might no longer be a pub. Indeed, it wasn’t always called the Liverpool Arms. I know that because the stretch of road between it and Whitebridge is the ’Halfway House straight’. Dad again.

And the bit of Santon near what was once the Lancashire House pub will always be ’near the Lanky’, while we all still drive past the Highlander when we go out west, even though that’s long gone too.

When visitors to the island describe somewhere to us, we can look blankly.

A cousin from Essex told us about driving along ’the straight bit of the A3’. The A3? No idea. A bit of explaining later and I said: ’Oh, you mean the Ballamodha.’

So it’s not just place names. Does anyone from here navigate by road numbers or even know the number of their nearest A road?

Back to places that once were and didn’t really stop being . . .

The Palace Hotel became the Stakis and then the Hilton before it became the Palace again. But it was always the Palace really, wasn’t it?

In my more obtuse moments, I’ll call the Rovers Return the Albion, but I have to admit its newfangled name (changed in about 1988 at a guess) has stuck better than most.

Occasionally, when my friends and I were trying to be cool in the late 80s, we’d deliberately call Bushy’s Zhivago’s (worse Zhiv’s) to prove how long we’d been going there. But we were put right by Dad. Yates’s.

I acknowledge that licensed premises feature heavily in my mental map.

When my drinking days began, we went to the New Strand and Legs of Man (previously Globe) next door. They were knocked together to become Caseys, then Strand 58, then Rendezvous (a different one to that mentioned above), then Carnival. The post office is there now, with a clothes shop in the other half. I’d probably still say ’near where the New Strand was’ if I were a human satnav.

So it’s hard to get us to accept a change in any name.

Remember when the brewery changed the name of the Clarendon to ’the Buzz Factory’? That lasted about 25 minutes. Oh, how we laughed.

It was never the Buzz Factory. And nobody would ever call it that.

Everyone outside the Heron and Brearley boardroom (and probably many in it) always knew that.

Not far away, the Wheatsheaf tried to be the Cornerhouse. It’s neither now, sadly.Part of me wants to call Marks & Spencer the Dogs’ Home just to be awkward. But that might be a step too far, as well as being not entirely accurate.

Anyway, it’s not just Douglas.

The Commercial pub in Ramsey changed its name to the Mermaid, went back to the Commerical, then decided it wanted to be the Ellan Vannin. But it was always the Commie and the powers that be saw sense and have reverted again, although I don’t think there are any signs outside that actually say any name now.

Perhaps that’s the way to go. Be enigmatic. Have a name and no name at the same time.

That would be confusing in a different, quite satisfying, way.

I prefer my traditional confusion. I’d direct friends using ’Villiers’, ’Peveril’, ’Crescent, you know the one that was turned into Paramount City, not the cinema’, ’the PC (Peel Castle pub)’ and ’Ballacallin’.

So, dear readers, in light of all this, what have we learned?

The chances of the new Mount Murray hotel actually being called the Comis - the name the developers have chosen - are smaller than a very small thing.