A German doctor while based in England became very disillusioned with the British class system. It annoyed him so much, that on one occasion he uncoupled the first class carriages from the rear of a train in Crew station. The train pulled away leaving the first class passengers sitting on an engineless train in Crew station for several hours, whilst the second class passengers rattled on towards their destination, probably oblivious to what the doctor had done.

When I was a kid travelling back to school on the IOM boat in the 60’s, they use to have a rope pulled tight across the deck. This rope was to separate the first and second class passengers. From what I can remember, it simply meant that on one side of the rope you paid a shilling for a cup of tea, and on the other you paid one and three a cup, and for the privilege of paying the extra amount for your tea, you paid an extra quid on top of your fare; however, you were at least a first class passenger. I recall one day myself and Dad ending up in the first class passenger saloon. On this occasion for whatever reason the rope was not in place. I never gave it much thought at the time, however, I wonder now if the German doctor was travelling on that day and had untied it. I suppose an eccentric German doctor charging round untying ropes onboard a ship could be a bit dodgy. Not so very long ago pubs use to have a best room and a bar. In the best room you paid a penny more for your pint for which you had a carpet under your feet, and a more comfortable chair to sit in. These days you pay around £3 for your pint, and it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever as to where in the pub you choose to drink it. Mahatma Gandy always insisted on travelling third class on the Indian railways. He said it kept him in touch with the people. Can you imagine Gordon brown travelling around Europe with Ryanair, or for that matter Tony Brown catching the bus in to Tynwald? During my time at the bank, I was a very junior member of staff. I never did become a big cheese; however, I often did get to eat it. Once the telephone team was moved they didn’t really know what to do with me, so they gave me a nice little office up on the top floor. It was a lovely little office with a couple of computers and a telephone. The telephone never rang once and I don’t think I ever turned on the computers. Anyway I got bored just hanging around smoking my pipe and what have you so I invented a job delivering the post. Because I was based upstairs, I got to know when all the big functions were taking place in the boardroom. The food these high palloys ate in there was unbelievable. It is little wonder that the banks are now having a hard time. I had an inside man which we will call Bernard. If he reads these blogs he will recognize himself. Bernard, who was a special policeman, would go and raid the fridge of the finest cheeses and bring them to my office. Boy they were wonderful. Maybe the top brass in the bank thought if they put a special policeman in charge of their kitchen it would be a prudent move on their account. I am glad they were naive and extremely grateful to Bernard. I do recall one day half a plane load of lawyers turned up at the bank one morning, and were to be wined and dined by management. They all sat in the main banking hall before being shown to the boardroom. I was not expecting a bunch of lawyers to be sitting all over the banking hall and of course I fell over them when I came tramping along with my early morning post bag. Later as I sat in my 4^th floor office I could hear a lot of tut tutting going on in the boardroom next door. It turned out that either the outside caterers had not turned up or, maybe someone had phoned them and cancelled, as I’m sure I heard a German accent as they all trooped off down the stairs.

Until tomorrow then folks Auf Wiedersehen!