I was born at Danesbury in Stephenson Road, Cowes in 1914 just months before the outbreak of World War 1. I was the second-oldest child in what was to become a family of eleven girls, and used to run free on that part of the Island with my sisters Marian and Doris. My father, Arthur Austin Tasker, worked as an engineer for the Cowes shipbuilding firm of J. Samuel White, which as you can imagine, was kept very busy throughout the War years.

The War impressed itself on my young mind with occasional, but vivid images. On one occasion, a big airship floated silent and menacing over our house; the town was often full of strangers in uniform and my Uncle Horace would come home on leave from his Company in Aldershot. One of my earliest memories is of a tank on display at the end of Stephenson Road. The soldiers invited us to look inside and I remember that it was dark and hot.

Our house was, like most Island homes, a two-storey one; In fact I think there was only one single-storey house in the whole district, which made it so distinctive that everyone used to refer to it as "The Bungalow". We had the usual front drawing room, with the piano and all the best furniture which was only used for Christmas day, or when visitors came. The house had plenty of bedrooms, but no bathroom, so we all had our baths in a large tin dish in front of the kitchen fire.

Mum and Dad were very particular about us maintaining our health, and in addition to the usual attention to diet and injunctions to "wrap up warmly", there were the regular family dosings with medicine. In addition to senna-pod tea, the main medicine administered was a foul concoction of powdered sulphur and treacle. We girls dreaded having to line up while Dad would administer a big spoonful to each one. My sister Doris, who had a reputation for stubbornness, had some success in avoiding the medicine. On one occasion when urged to swallow it, she bit down so hard that she broke the bowl off the spoon, and my parents didn't persist with forcing her to take it.

Much of Cowes and the surrounding area was still very rural in the 1920s. At the back of our house in Stephenson Road were cornfields, then woods beyond, where we used to pick bluebells and baskets full of blackberries. I remember hanging longingly over the back fence listening to the distant music of a circus that set up camp in the fields. Dad wouldn't let us go there by ourselves, as there was a fear of gypsies stealing children, but one night he took us to see the show. On another occasion, a travelling picture show set up there, and we saw our first moving pictures - Charlie Chaplin comedies!

I remember Mill Hill Rd having a ruined, deserted old mill at the top. As children, we believed it was haunted, and it was the scene of many childish dares. We used the hills around Cowes to good effect - we all had hoops which we would take to the top and then bowl them down.

Our schooling started at Greenbank, a small private school run by two maiden ladies in Cowes. Classes were small, and most of our lessons consisted of reciting things or copying things down on our slates . The highlight of our year there was the Christmas pageant, featuring my sister hopping around in red flannel as Robin Redbreast, and a party afterwards with sticky red cordial and a present for each student. We all had to go into a room blindfold and pick a present. I chose a big heavy box that felt promising, but when I opened it, it was the biggest tin of slate pencils I had ever seen. What a disappointment! Mum and Dad were anxious for their girls to have a good education, and thought that Greenbank school taught too much of the social graces and not enough of the three Rs (reading, writing & arithmetic, ed.) so they moved us after a year.

Our next school was Denmark School. The school had rather a grim air with its iron railings and rows of tin drinking cups chained to the wall. Schooling was a fairly basic affair - we sat at rows of wooden desks, working sums on our slates and reading out aloud. Then disease hit the school, first measles, then whooping cough. Several of us got sick and missed the rest of the term. The next term, we were too late to re-enrol at Denmark School, so we had to go to Cross Street School next door.

We enjoyed our time at Cross Street, and I have a photo of us posing around the maypole in the school playground. The family used to tease me about one of the little boys in the photo, John Beasley, and say he was my boyfriend!

Like many pupils, we went home at midday for our dinner. On one occasion, (maybe it was a Friday) we had fish and were slower than usual finishing our lunch because of the time it took us to get all the bones out. By the time we got back to the school, classes had already started again. We had to walk in there and look up at the teacher, who was up on a raised platform behind a sort of pulpit, and we were terrified. My older sister Marian just managed to stammer "Please Miss, we had fish for dinner!" We were sent to our seats without punishment.

I would often make a detour on my way home from school past the bakery to smell the buns. If I ever had spending money (not very frequent) that's what I would spend it on. I loved buns so much that my family nickname was "bunny". Another spot popular with us was Jolliff's sweet shop in Mill Hill Rd where the tall glass jars held boiled sweets and bull's-eyes, and a farthing (¹/_4d. or £0.001 ed.) would buy a paper bag full.

Although money was so tight, we always did our best to celebrate Christmas. We would sit in the dining room making paper chains to decorate the house, and we sewed handkerchiefs and rag dolls as presents for each other. I remember waking up on Christmas morning and finding treats in my stocking at the end of the bed, often a book, and some nuts and in the toe a beautiful blood orange imported from Spain. We usually went around to "Albert Villa", Grandma & Grandpa's house in Park Road on Christmas night. Grandpa Walter Morris was a Cowes builder and monumental mason who build not only Albert Villa, but also carried out the late 19th century reconstruction of St Mary's Church Cowes.

At the end of the war, there was a downturn in shipbuilding and around 1920 my father, along with many others, ended up losing his job. For two years he was out of work. Sometimes he would go back to the mainland for a few weeks to take up casual jobs found for him by his brother in London. In the intervals between jobs, he would work on his allotment up at Summerton, and the vegetables he grew there were a welcome contribution in hard times. At night, the whole family, Dad included, would sit around the fire after supper and knit socks and singlets! He was a very versatile man, and also built furniture, mended our shoes and killed and dressed the Christmas pig - I can still remember the gruesome thing hanging with its throat cut near the scullery door!

One of the casual jobs he managed to find on the Island was that of counting cars for a local council survey. He had to sit by the side of the road each day up near the stone gatekeeper's cottage next to the cemetery above Cowes, recording details of each car that passed. As there were few cars on the Island in the 1920s this was not a very demanding task, and he usually kept a novel to read tucked inside his survey book. At lunchtime, Mum would ask Marian and I to carry his lunch up the hill to him in a wicker basket.

Finally, in 1922 as the Depression loomed and work got ever-more scarce, our family made plans to leave for Australia. The furniture, household goods, even Mum and Dad's wedding present were auctioned. Hardest of all, we even had to give away our toys, because we couldn't take much luggage with us on the ship. We sailed on the S.S. Diogenes from Tilbury Docks in December 1922, leaving our home on the Island behind us, but with loving and vivid memories in our hearts.