Look Who it Was Random video

Guitar: The Pride and Boast of Mannin Veg

610 views · Published 24 March 2009 · 3:58 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: threelegsoman · 2009 · Music

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This is a somewhat adventurous step for me. The words to this song were given to me some forty years ago by an old Manxman who asked me if I could put a tune to them. There was an air attributed to the poem namely "The Jolly Plough-boy", but as neither he nor I were familiar with it, he said he would be happy if I made up my own tune. Regrettably I never got round to it then and subsequently 'lost' the copy of the poem. I have just moved from my former home to a new flat and in the course of the move, this morning I came across the poem hidden away in a drawer. I decided to see if I could complete the task that Mr Watterson gave me all those years ago, so I have just recorded it successfully at the second time of trying. The tune came to me without any effort at all on my part, yet forty years ago, I could not come up with one. 

The story behind this is written on the sheet the poem came on as a footnote:

 Very kind Ladies and Gentlemen, our aged Manx Poet informs you that he has now completed his handsome "Cottage in the Heather", at his advanced age of 78, without any help except that of his good Wife at the age of 76. She has been a good wife, and a credit to her sex, and she hopes when I am gone to my rest, you will come to see her new cottage called "Sunny Mount", she will provide sober drinks and Tea and Coffee if required. There is no finer view or healthier spot than the "Mount" on the Island or even in the World. When Ellen joins me in our Father's House, the Cottage goes to the poor of the Parish of Rushen. I will now conclude by saying, as the Queen of Sheba said when she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear and see the wisdom of Solomon: "but a greater than Solomon is here"!-who, with all his kingly power and riches, never built 'a cottage in the heather' and left it to the poor. 

F-I-N-I-S.

T SHIMMIN, OUR OLD MANX POET, AGED 78, June 1879 

Tom Shimmin, (the aged poet) was a 'lay preacher, and as such he frequently baptised children and adults, dipping them in a river, thus earning for himself the nickname of 'Tom the Dipper'. The site of his cottage in the heather is today marked by a small stone monument with a verse of one or his poems written on it, but of the cottage itself, only some of the original stones remain. However, his magnificent view is still there for all to enjoy.

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