Oxfordshire has had some strange connections with the Isle of Man in the past — but never has it been so easy to reach as now.

There was the eccentric Thomas Bushell, creator of water gardens in Enstone visited by King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria in 1636.

He was secretary to Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon, but when Bacon fell from power Bushell made himself scarce by travelling to a tiny island off the Isle of Man called the Calf of Man. And there he lived on herbs for three years.

Nearer to our own time, several German Jewish academics, to whom Oxford University had offered jobs and sanctuary before the Second World War, suddenly found themselves shipped off to be interned on the island in 1940.

Now, though, what has long been seen as a remote island of exile for Oxford people has suddenly become accessible any day of the week, thanks to the airline manx2.com, operating a daily scheduled service from Oxford Airport to Ronaldsway, Isle of Man, with single fares from £50.

Never having visited the Isle of Man before, but having heard of these Oxford connections, I jumped at the chance to catch the airline’s 19-seater Jetstream 31 aircraft in order to take a tour of the place.

Talk about hassle-free travel. No queues or parking problems, I left my car outside the new purpose-built terminal (£5 a day) and took off.

I felt like a millionaire with his private plane. I dare say that even John Betjeman, the poet who loved North Oxford but also loved the Isle of Man, would have enjoyed the trip.

But what is the business case for introducing more scheduled flights to Oxford? And is there a strong argument for making Oxford airport a major jumping-off point for offshore islands? After all, daily scheduled manx2.com flights to Jersey were also introduced in May and the airport is now looking seriously at starting flights to Guernsey.

Certainly the airport’s owners, brothers David and Simon Reuben — ranked number eight in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List with £907m —mean business when it comes to investment in the airport.

Airport managing director Chris Orphanou told me: “About £25m has been invested in the airport since 2007 when the Reuben brothers bought it.

“Now it is really going places — but we are concentrating on small aircraft.”

And the site has just become even more attractive to scheduled operators by installing a £4.4m radar system.

Oxford Airport, or London Oxford Airport as it now likes to be called, is to some extent re-inventing itself after changing international legislation meant that much of its highly successful pilot training business, CSE Aviation, migrated overseas.

The global pilot training business, Oxford Aviation Academy, based at the airport was sold last month to Canadian company CAE for £195m.

But some might say that offering more scheduled services marks a return to the airport’s original objectives. It was founded as Oxford’s Municipal Airport following a1932 editorial in The Oxford Times urging Oxford councillors ‘to establish an aerodrome to serve the city, noting that: ‘Civil aviation was developing with internal mail and air services’ and commenting that ‘Those cities having an airport would reap direct benefits’.

The site was first used as an aerodrome in the late 1930s, when, incidentally, writer Graham Greene used it regularly to visit his girlfriend in Cambridge. Then, as war loomed, it became increasingly a training ground for RAF pilots.

In the 1940s it contained more hangars than today — and covered a wider area. In the 1990s 15 of its 390 acres were sold off to establish theSpires Business Park off Langford Lane.

Mr Orphanou said: “In a way we are going back to the future here. We simply want to offer a good service to the community. And the Reuben brothers want to continually expand and develop that service. Now the Reubens have bought London Heliport in Battersea and we are expecting to fly people into London during the Olympics. We are exempt from the ban on flying that will operate in London.

“The only trouble is that slots are so difficult to come by that many people are waiting until the last moment before booking for the 22 minute flight into London. After all, people like ambassadors hesitate before committing themselves too far ahead to a particular quarter of an hour slot in which to arrive. They have busy schedules.”

He added: “I do not think people need worry that we shall become too big. We are constrained by a restriction of 160,000 aircraft movements a year. We are also constrained by the length of our runways — which means the biggest aircraft we could see here would be about 100 seaters.”

As for the Isle of Man and Jersey flights, manx2.com chairman Noel Hayes said: “In total more than 2000 seats have now been sold on the route from Oxford to Jersey including more than 300 who have booked to travel from the Isle of Man to Jersey via Oxford.

And as for my fleeting visit to the Isle of Man, it was like dropping in on a Toytown land for a day. Everything seemed smaller and less hurried — though I suppose that all changed during the TT races (pictured above), just finished, in which motorbikes travelled the small roads at speeds approaching 200 mph.

Now they would have astonished our 17th century hermit from Enstone.