'Nostalgia'

I’m thinking about nostalgia the subject having been broached by a Manx Radio interviewer this week asking me about nationalism and Mec Vannin.

Right on cue a small strong buff envelope drops through the letterbox with a US postmark. I’m intrigued used as I am to the gas, electricity or telecom bill with a variation when Alfred Cannan MHK and his chums at the Income Tax Division undertake their annual ‘extortion’.

I open it and its English ‘cultural nostalgia’. A small booklet entitled ‘Huddersfield 1974’ from Chris Killip who now lives in Cambridge Massachusetts having gone there to take up a position of Professor of Photography and Visual Studies at Harvard University a role he undertook from 1991 - 2017. I grew up with Chris in Peel and eventually went through secondary school with him. He’s a great photographer and produced a real masterpiece on the changing face of the Isle of Man many years ago. As well as rural areas he is famous for his striking photos of industrial areas of the UK in decline ‘Huddersfield’ falls into that bracket.

Coincidentally I only mentioned him a few days ago when swapping some ‘nostalgic’ reminiscences with Nigel Kermode (another old ‘nationalist’) out at Greens at St Johns so possibly this unexpected gift is a spin-off from that. If it is the speed of delivery shows that at least the Post Office in Cambridge Massachusetts are not experiencing industrial action!

I wonder did/does the Isle of Man appreciate what a talent it had in Killip certainly when he started - although now of course he’s feted.

It also makes me think about nostalgia and culture - not the Mec Vannin type but the Culture Vannin type. Last week when we were all ‘enthralled’ by the shenanigans at Westminster Culture Vannin suddenly blasted out something about ‘Manx Shrove Tuesday’.

I wonder does Culture Vannin focus on the culture that's around today or do they wait until it's almost gone and try to track it down or reconstruct it.

There is and always has been a rich social history on the Isle of Man. The fishing industry was always a vibrant area. Back in the 1940/50s when I grew up itinerant women workers mainly from Scotland and Ireland followed the fishing around the UK. My mother ran a lodging house so as a youngster and being an incredibly ‘pretty’ toddler I was swamped by their affection and lapped it up. I wonder did anyone ever record their tales and experiences or indeed that of the fishermen both local and from around the British Isles who choked Manx ports with their boats at the time. Even as late as the 1970s there was a vibrant industry and today of course it still exists. Do it and its traditions register now.

The Construction industry has changed dramatically in fifty years did anyone record or notate those changes. Even something as mundane as Highways, now blessed with that Orwellian ‘DOI’ label, had a rich tradition. When I worked at Rivers and Bridges briefly the stories of the old Parish Gangs were legend not least the one about the top of Foxdale. Did anyone seek it out and note it down I doubt it. I’m not going to tell it! It can die with me.

Culture and Tradition is not nostalgia for a world that stopped circa 1930 or when the last native speaker of Manx died its with us always. I’m not really bothered about ‘Manx Shrove Tuesday’ but I do hope someone is out somewhere like Killip was photographing people at work...or just people....with his sensitivity for subject….. Before that is it's to late!

Images:

Chris Killip
The Quirk Family from Killips ‘The Isle of Man’
The Faragher Family from Killips ‘The Isle of Man’

Bernard Moffatt

Manx nationalist