In this week’s column, former MHK David Cretney recounts some more well known phrases and reveals how a couple bonded over their love of bikes and the Isle of Man TT...

Thanks to everyone who contacted me about phrases from the past.

Val was in touch with ‘don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched’ and ‘many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip’, which probably mean more or less the same thing?

She told me adults would say ‘a little bird told me…’ if they weren’t going to give you the source of some piece of information.

At bedtime, she remembers being told that we were ‘going up the hill to Bedfordshire’.

If you were being feeble about some physical task, you would be told you ‘couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding’. Her mother, of tea or coffee with too much sugar in it, or some very thick soup, always said ‘you could trot a mouse in it’.

She recalls her grandfather, if he retreated behind a tree during a family picnic, would say if questioned that he was ‘going to see a man about a dog’.

Finally, her grandmother, approaching the seaside in the west of Ireland, used invariably to breathe in deeply, and say ‘smell the ozone!’

What she was actually smelling, of course, was rotting seaweed.

Other expressions known as proverbs that I have been reminded of include ‘a bad penny always turns up’, ‘a barking dog never bites’, ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’, ‘a chain is only as strong as its weakest link’, ‘a change is as good as a rest’, ‘a fool and his money are soon parted’, ‘a friend in need is a friend indeed’, ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’, ‘a house is not a home’, ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’, and how about ‘a little bit of what you fancy does you good’.

I remember at Bucks Road Eisteddfod my uncle Jack was one of the quizmasters and one of the rounds comprised him saying the start of an idiom such as ‘as bold as…’ or ‘as cool as…’ and you had to give the ending in these examples ‘as bold as brass’ or ‘as cool as a cucumber’.

Here’s a few more for you to work out! … ‘barking up the wrong…’, ‘blow your own…’, ‘once in a blue…’, ‘separate the wheat from the…’, ‘armed to the…’, ‘a flash in the…’, ‘worth its weight in…’, ‘the pot calling the kettle…’, ‘like a cat on a hot tin…’… I’m sure you will have got all those! … As always get in touch with your suggestions…

Now the dust has settled from TT 2024 and the Southern 100 races are just around the corner, I thought I would share with you a story from my good friend Pat Sharp whose husband Bryan Sharp celebrated his 91st birthday in June.

Both have been stalwarts of Albany Lawn Tennis Club since its inception. In 2011 Bryan was the recipient of the ‘lifetime achievement’ category at the IOM Sports Awards and Pat in 2021 was recognised by the Lawn Tennis Association as one of the finalists in the same category which she duly won against strong competition from others across the British Isles and UK.

It was a real thrill to be present to watch live on TV as the award was announced. They will be looking forward, as will many island residents, to Wimbledon and in particular Manx tennis ace Billy Harris who has a wild card entry into the event. He played exceptionally well at the Queens Club Tournament and it is due reward for all his efforts since playing as a young man at Albany. He drove around Europe in a van, sometimes sleeping in it, to save money as he played in lower tier tournaments earlier in his career. Good luck Billy!

Now back to the story from Pat… ‘I don’t suppose you would imagine that I’m a bike fan but I am. I first came to the island in 1955, travelling from Hertfordshire, by coach to Warrington and bus to Liverpool. I stayed at the Edelweiss Hotel, Little Switzerland… chosen for its name (no websites in those days). Staying there were two racers, Dave Meridan and Roy Preece both entered in the Clubman’s Races on the Clypse Course. Dave and his friend Bert, his mechanic, came from Buckinghamshire, not that far from my home. I went out with them on the back of Bert’s bike and we all became good friends. I was bitten by the biking bug and Bert, who had a garage, found me a Triumph Terrier. Was I so proud of it! Reg SPP157, my mum said it stood for ‘Silly Pat Pannell’ my maiden name. She couldn’t see what I liked about motorcycles. Anyway, the next year I came to the TT again, on my bike, 200 miles from home to Liverpool. Quite a journey but I made it and was hooked on the TT and bikes. I ‘earned’ a paddock pass by getting up at 5am to cook breakfast in the hotel kitchen for Dave and Bert. That was the first year the Clubman’s took place on the Mountain Course. One early morning practice Dave had done a lap and said to Bert he had worked out how to take Ballaugh Bridge. Sadly, on the next practice session, he got it wrong and was killed. I had the awful task of packing his clothes and so on to be sent home. I’ve never seen the press report on the inquest but know the bike was recorded as mechanically sound. An awful experience but that’s life. Anyway, somehow, I managed to ride the 200 miles home though it was difficult to concentrate. I returned to work and found Bryan had joined the staff of Sir Robert McAlpine’s Architects Department. He had a motorbike! So it didn’t take long to realise he was the one. We married in 1957, he did National Service from October 1958 and I had our 350cc Matchless to go to work on… Whoopee!… After that we came to several TT’s later with a 650cc AJS and Steib sidecar. A lovely outfit. Eventually, family dictated we had a car but Bryan did marshalling at Windy Corner for a few years. The last thing we did with bikes was in Australia a trip around Ayers Rock on the back of Harleys! So you can see why the TT still gives us both a ‘buzz’’

Thanks for those memories Pat, I’m sure readers will find them as interesting as I did!

Finally, this week after celebrating a big birthday in January, I have been joking that I am rapidly approaching middle age. With that comes one or two more senior moments the latest of which I recall here. I’m busy packing the shopping into the car boot and (fortunately) the nice people come up to me and tell me it’s actually their car! In my defence, it was the same colour! After admitting my error, ‘hands up’ is always the best way. On Facebook, it was some consolation that quite a number of those who forwarded comments described the same or similar situations! How about readers here. Get in touch via the usual channels if you have been involved in an embarrassing situation such as this! Go on, come clean to Dave!