Shocking the Isle of Man
At the end of the second year of my Biology degree we had to go on a field course. I do not know who made the decision but the powers that be had settled on the Isle of Man.
My Biology group were basically a bunch of Long-hair freaks, some girls who were not quite so extreme and a few guys who had come in from Africa and Pakistan and were a bit bemused by the radical sixties culture they had been thrown into the middle of.
The whole motley crew were put on a plane with lots of equipment and set loose on a quiet, sleepy town on the Island. It was like stepping back in time to the fifties.
We spent the days off round the cliffs clambering about and having a laugh. In the evening we had to produce a report on the wonderful research we had been carrying out.
At the end of the week there was a dance at the village hall and we decided to go along for a bit of fun. We all turned up at the dance wearing our best clothes. That largely consisted of jeans with colourful tops, the odd scarf and kaftan.
We were met at the door by a very stern looking gentleman who took one look at this bunch of long haired freaks reeking of London decadence, drugs, licentious sex and depravity and refused us entry.
We challenged the reason and he explained that we did not have the necessary jackets and ties to meet the dress code.
Undeterred we set off round to the back entrance. The doorman was smarter than he looked. He had seen what we were trying to do and hurried through the place to the back entrance.
‘Did you know you’ve got a twin brother on the front door?’ John Smith quipped. The doorman was not amused.
Plan B was called for. We went back to our hotel. The overseas students were always attired with jackets, ties and shirts. All we had to do was borrow some for the night.
We returned to the dance-hall in an assortment of ill-fitting jackets and ties. Ties did not go with kaftans or the type of paisley clothes that we were wearing. We looked weirder than weird. But we were in high spirits. This was indeed the best laugh we’d had all week.
The ill-tempered doorman inexplicably could not find a reason to refuse us entry. In his eyes we complied with the letter of the law and although he was not at all happy he could not come up with a reason for refusing us entry. He was a man who followed procedure to the letter. We had complied.
We had not been in for more than minutes when we were asked to leave. The dance had turned out to be some out-dated type of Disco playing some ghastly Pop songs. We had taken to the floor and were prancing around like loons much to the amazement of the rather staid, old-fashioned looking local youths who appeared to consisted of bewildered escapees from the fifties. To them we were a bunch of wild freaks from London more strange that a shipload of monsters from Mars. Their eyes were bugging!
Evidently we were not allowed to prance! We were being much too wild. Our behaviour was unseemly.
Outside the dance-hall we negotiated a return. We had to guarantee we would not freak out the dance and prance. We agreed.
This was getting better by the minute.
We were back on the floor dancing in slow motion like sloths on mogadon and sending the atrocious music up no end.
We were asked to leave again by the group of stern faced parents, led by Mr Doorman, who were acting as bouncers.
Once more outside the dancehall we complained and argued that we had complied with instructions; we were no longer prancing wildly.
We were told that it was not good enough. On the Isle of Man there was a convention that you danced with girls. We were in breach of the convention. Once again we negotiated our way back in and promised not to dance on our own. I think they let us back in because they were worried what trouble we might cause if they left us outside.
Back inside we found that the local girls, much to the annoyance of Mr Grumpy, his retinue of trainee grumpies, and the local youths, who, thinking they were the height of cool, all looking like extras from a documentary on Merseybeat, all wanted to dance with us. We had a great time delighting the girls with our wild moves while the local lads glowered at us. The girls loved it.
It didn’t last long though. Mr Grumpy had seen quite enough. The local constabulary arrived and we were escorted out. The girls came with us and we all went back to our hotel for a party.
It certainly made for a memorably night out. I’d never been thrown out of a dance five times before that night.
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I though a few anecdotes from my books of anecdotes might brighten up your day.