Throughout the 1930s, the world’s newspapers were full of incredible stories about Gef, a ‘talking mongoose’ or ‘man-weasel’ who had allegedly appeared in the home of a peculiar family living in a somewhat dilapidated Isle of Man farmhouse. Gef was said to speak several languages, sing, steal objects from nearby farms, and eavesdrop on local people, bearing local gossip back to his host family, James and Margaret Irving and their teenage daughter Voirrey.
James and Margaret were not native Islanders, but had moved there from Liverpool in 1917, where, up until the Great War, they had enjoyed comparative prosperity. James, an educated and intellectually curious man, had been Britain’s sales representative for the Dominion Piano & Organ Company, a Canadian firm whose grand and upright pianos were renowned for their…
