My father was at school in Douglas from about 1896 to 1906. He wrote a letter to Mr Noah Moore from Africa dated August 1915. The letter tells of the first year of the war at sea. Along the way he met Manxmen serving on HMS Goliath before her fatal encounter with a Turkish warship off the Dardanelles.

The context of the letter suggests that he was addressing his schoolmaster but it is possible that it was his choirmaster. The mystery thickens. The 1901 census may throw light on it. This now seems to be working on line but I could not get the site to find Manx addresses despite the fact that the microfiche records at Kew have them. It was interesting to see an additional question on the Manx returns about languages used.