Manx wind up

The Parish Church is so often the centre of English villages and Leintwardine is no exception as you will see from the photo above.

But you don't usually get the chance to climb to the top of the tower as we did yesterday. We had just walked in for a "skeet" when we were greeted by the man who winds the clock twice a week who invited us to make the climb in two stages. We could watch him wind the clock (above) and then continue to the top for the stunning views (below).

Little did we expect to find that our man was born in Jurby in 1940 when his father was in the RAF and was named Killane after the nearby location. His brother was named Deigen after the rocky beach between Peel and Kirk Michael. Sadly their father lost his life before the war was out.

We've revived Killane's (seen telling Marie the history of the village when was split between the two camps during the English Civil War) interest in returning to the place of his birth to which we don't return for another week yet.

Incidentally, apart from the Parish Walk and the End to End Walk what other athletic events have ever involved Jurby?

Football is not going my way tonight but I knew it wasn't going to be a good night when the pre-match analysis concluded that both teams want to win! I think a two year old could have reached that conclusion. Mind you the way my team is playing it is hard to prove such an obvious statement.