Loaghtan Books

  As many of you know, the Tower of Refuge stands on Conister Rock in Douglas Harbour.  The rock is sneaky in that it lies just underneath the water when the tide is in.  Boats which don't know the waters - and a few which do - have been known to ground or even wreck on Conister Rock.  The Tower of Refuge acts as a marker so that skippers of incoming boats know where the rock is. The Tower is usually only accessible by boat, and then only by boats whose occupants know what they're doing and have permission to do it.  However, at Spring tide it's just possible to walk to the Tower, if you don't mind getting your feet wet.  The walk is organised by the RNLI (its founder, William Hilary, built the Tower) whose members supervise to make sure people don't do anything daft, or at least can be rescued if (when) they do do daft things. Last Thursday was the day, and getting on for two thousand people enjoyed the unusual sunshine (remember that large round yellow thing?) to

Pictured above is His Excellency Sir John Lorimer, Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man, and King Charles' representative on Mann. Yesterday Loaghtan Books was honoured by a visit from Sir John and Lady Lorimer. ....... The King's representative came here. Here. ARGH! His visit was of course a huge honour, but it did bring with it some difficulties.  As our delivery drivers will testify, vehicular access to the office is, frankly, awful.  While I was sure that His Excellency's driver could cope, I had visions of the official limousine getting scraped on our famously hostile hill. Tentatively I suggested to Sir John's PA that he and Lady Lorimer might arrive on the Manx Electric Railway, and we would meet them at the Dreemskerry tram stop.  Rather to our surprise, they not only came on the MER but on an ordinary service tram.  Good for them!  In Sir John's position he could have requested the Royal trailer, if not a 'Special', and it would of course have be