If you mention the Warm Wall to senior residents of Laxey Village they might smile knowingly, then speculate happily as to what percentage of the local population had been accidentally conceived within its precincts.
If that edifice does not have a preservation order attached it most certainly should have. Not that it has any architectural merit, just the great blank wall where the Laxey Co-op backed onto the Manx Electric Railway Station. However set against the interior of that wall were the ovens of the Co-op bakery.
If any over enthusiastic courting were to take place there, it would of necessity be much later at night than concerns me at this point. In the early evening it was not unusual to see a line of local lads standing with their backs to that wall, basking in the heat of those ovens.
Now in Laxey Tram Station at that time there was a leaking pole. A pole with faulty insulation which allowed a trickle of electricity to run to earth, just sufficient to give anyone who touched it a stiff jolt. Any newcomer or visitor to the area could be challenged to a foot race, the object of which was to touch the pole and return. It was amazing how slow the local lads were on the way there, and how fast they could run on the way back when pursued by an avenging victim.
It would be about nine o’clock one late summer evening, seven or eight of us were warming our backs and swapping lies, when onto the scene stalked Monty.
Monty was a black and tan mongrel, not that huge, but big enough. Maybe some Airedale with a bit of collie or Alsatian and goodness knows what else. He was downright unfriendly at best and had bitten at least three people that we knew of. Today he would be put down. However he belonged to Colonel Malinder. The Colonel would not have been unduly perturbed by the knowledge that his pet harboured a predilection for mutilating members of the local peasantry.
Monty came up the path from The Captains Hill and around the back of the church with the Colonel about twenty yards behind him. They never really came anywhere near us, so we took no notice as they headed off towards what is now the Mines Tavern.
Then the atmosphere changed, there was an air of tense expectancy, and I looked around to observe Monty marching purposefully towards that leaking pole.
He definitely had our undivided attention then!
You could tell by the manner of his approach that he was going to give it the treatment, he really was going to stamp his authority on that pole.
The pole however had plans of its own and it stamped its authority on Monty.
I trust you all understand that electricity may be earthed, quite effectively, by means of a stream of fluid.
Granted that with his leg cocked up like that he was a bit off balance, but even so!
It flung him three feet through the air and turned him completely over. In B.M.X. speak, he did a full three sixty and landed back on his feet.
For a few seconds he crouched, teeth bared, head swivelling wildly from side to side as he glared about him, desperately trying to ascertain who or what could have perpetrated such a vicious assault. Finally, seized by a nameless, primal terror and giving vent to the most unearthly howl you ever heard, he turned and fled.
All of us must have been holding our breath, because someone gave a kind of strangled snort, and immediately the whole group collapsed, laughing helplessly.
Panic stricken, Monty bolted out of the station still howling, across the bridge and up the Ramsey Road on the opposite side of the valley, his howls fading away into the distance toward Minorca.
As for the Colonel he was the wildest man you ever saw, apoplectic hardly covers it.
His face was puce, his eyes bulging, waxed moustaches vibrating and the veins on his neck and temples standing out like knotted cords. We had never actually observed a grown man dancing with rage before. The prayer of cursing he laid on us would have curdled the milk.
It would have been a complete waste of effort trying to explain it was not actually our fault. I believed, for a moment, that he might attack us but maybe we were just too many for him.
He would have been safe enough because we were helpless. Some were propped against the wall, one or two had even slid to the ground, while others clung to trees for support, I could only barely see through the tears.
Of course his antics made us worse and our condition only served to infuriate him the more.
We did not see so much of Monty after that incident, however the experience did seem to make him a little pensive.
To our certain knowledge he never again ventured into Laxey Tram Station.
David Kelly
David Kelly | Poetry & Short Stories 