There’s still something about scavenger hunts that excites people, even if its popularity has waned over the years.

I remember often participating in scavenger hunts as a child, running down random country roads in the middle of nowhere searching for cryptic clues that always ended with the participants eating something at the end, usually something like chicken in a basket.

In the early 1980s, there was treasure hunt fever when Cadbury’s announced that it had hidden certificates across the UK that would entitle the discovery of a golden egg. One of them was hidden on the Isle of Man and we even talked about it at school.

The certificate was eventually found in Maughold Cemetery and the recipient received a 22-carat egg adorned with a Manx cat, Laxey’s wheel, a fairy bridge and pink enameled fairies.

More recently, there was a treasure hunt for Golden Queenies as part of the Queenie Festival in 2012 and the treasure was eventually found at Mortuary Beach in Port Erin.

The advancement of technology has perhaps tempered the romance of the treasure hunt these days with the use of the internet, mobile phones and artificial intelligence making it easier to solve clues.

But imagine if Visit Isle of Man announced that it had brought in JK Rowling or Richard Osman to write a short story with clues to solve a real-life treasure hunt on the Isle of Man.

That’s exactly what happened in 1930, when the island’s tourism bosses commissioned the great Agatha Christie to write a story with clues about the treasure hunt.

He was paid a paltry £60 (still today only the equivalent of a few thousand pounds) to write the story titled ‘Manx Gold’.

I’m a bit of a fan of golden age crime fiction and hadn’t heard of this story until I heard a podcast that mentioned it.

Apart from the Isle of Man Post Office creating commemorative stamps in 2003 in Christie’s honour, she has been somewhat forgotten.

In 1930, the Isle of Man was a popular summer holiday destination, although its halcyon days were beginning to fade.

The tourism board hoped the treasure hunt would lead people to tour the island and visit some of its highlights.

In the story, Christie combined written and visual clues to help readers locate one of four snuff boxes that could be exchanged for £100 at the tourist office, equivalent to several thousand pounds in today’s money. There were four in total.

Advertisements promoting Christie’s treasure hunt began appearing in newspapers across the UK and those interested would receive a free guide and road map.

Manx Gold was then published in the Daily Dispatch, a Manchester newspaper, in five installments from 23 to 28 May 1930.

On the island, the summer tourism promotion brochure ‘June in Douglas’ was distributed throughout the island and also contained the story. Unfortunately, island residents were unable to claim any of the prizes.

The story of Manx Gold is fairly simple and has none of Christie’s usual sinister twists and turns. He embraced Manx culture using classic Manx names. The main characters are Juan and Fenella, who are first cousins ​​and are romantically involved (after all, this was a century ago) and inherit their uncle Myles’ property.

This property includes a series of clues that will lead them to their great-grandfather’s fortune obtained through smuggling.

With a competing relative and a murder, the main characters narrate the treasure hunt to the readers.

In addition to clues within the story narrative, separately released clues also gave readers more help finding the hidden snuffboxes.

The snuff boxes were located at Derby Fort on St Michael’s Isle in Langness, a bench on Peel Hill overlooking Peel Castle, a ravine 85 near Meayll Circle on Mull Hill, near Cregneash and on an ivy-covered wall near from a kiosk inside Mooragh Park.

Among all the dozens of incredible novels and short stories written by the prolific Christie, Manx Gold seemed to get lost in the mists (or Manannan’s Cloak) of time.

However, in recent years the book has been published as a short story collection in book and e-book form.

It’s unclear how successful Christie’s story was in boosting tourism to the island, but it seems like it was a lot of fun at the time.