IF YOU bought a loaf of bread on the Island in the 1950s and ‘60s, the chances are, it had been baked here.

In the 1967 phone book, there are 13 bakers listed, and among them, names like Rashley, Shutler, Weeks and Vine ­— and all these bakers were probably buying some of their flour from Calbourne Mill, then owned by the Weeks family.

In 2002, Colin Fairweather and I recorded an interview with Toby Downer, then in his 80s, for our book, Island Lives.

Toby had spent all his working life at Calbourne Mill, starting as a 14-year-old in 1930 when there were more than ten working mills on the Island ­— at Newport, Brighstone, Yafford, Yarmouth and St Helens.

They all ground using traditional mill stones, but in 1894, Calbourne had a state-of-the-art ‘break mill’ installed, driven by gas, which could process almost industrial quantities.

“When the break mill was introduced, it was a tremendous step forward,” said Toby.

“Just as important as computers these days.

“It ground the wheat, and from then on, the stones were left doing barley or oats.

“The farmers had come once a week, bringing in the stuff to be ground, and taking away what you’d already done.

“We used to do between one and two tons a day on the stones.

“A full mill pond would power them for a day, it just depended on the water flow.

“Sometimes, you would have to stop for an hour if it got too low.

“There was rainbow trout in the pond, so you had to make sure the damned herons didn’t get in there when the pond went down ­— they’d have a feast if you weren’t careful.

“If we were flour milling, only about five per cent would be Island wheat.

“The main bulk of it was Canadian, or sometimes Australian, and we kept around 100 tons in store.

“We supplied Wray’s, Harvey’s, Weeks in Newport, Booth’s at Ventnor, Gillings at Freshwater, Rashley’s at Cowes ­— they were all regular flour customers.

“They all made brown loaves, but each one had their own personal formula for the flour that went into them.

“Every baker’s brown bread would be different to someone else’s.

“We made them up individually for each baker ­— each one had a little postcard with the percentages on, and each one was different.

“The worst thing that could happen in the mill was the millstones running dry with no corn between them.

“The sparks would be flying, and sometimes the stones would be running, and they would go ‘clackety-clack, clackety-clack’ ­— nearly sends you to sleep, don’t it?

“All of a sudden, there’d be a terrific noise, and if you ran round quick and shot your hand in the barleymeal bag, a nail would come through ­— there was a nail in the bloomin’ mix ­— and he’d be red hot.

“When the stones have been running for so long, they wear down so much they don’t grind very well, so then you ‘dress’ the stones ­— recut the slots.

“The miller would do that, or, if we were very busy, there was a little chap from Cowes who used to come and do them.

“You could always tell a stone dresser by the backs of his hands ­— there’d be little bits of black metal, all stuck in the back of his hands.

“Most of the corn went into corn ricks and stood in the yard for months, drying out before it was threshed.

“That was when the moisture content came to the fore.

“When we went out to farms to buy in wheat, if the moisture content was too high, when you tried to put your hand in, it might only go in up to your wrist and we wouldn’t have it.

“If the wheat was really dry, it’d go in right up to your elbow. As simple as that.”

Calbourne Mill last ground bread flour in 1955.

“Rank’s, Spiller’s, Hovis ­— they bought up all the small mills and closed them countrywide because we were just a nuisance, that’s all, and Calbourne signed an agreement to go out of production.

“They just paid us to stop being a nuisance.

“The mill was part of village life.

“On the ground floor, there were some scoop scales.

“Mothers used to bring their babies in and weigh them on the scales.

“The wall was whitewashed, and in pencil was the date, the baby and the weight. That was a normal thing.

“I think we were lucky just being a country mill ­— and they hadn’t thought of the word stress in those days. It wasn’t in the vocabulary.”

The stones continued in use for animal feeds, but in ever smaller amounts, until the drought of 1976 brought commercial milling to an end.

We asked Toby about supermarket bread.

“I’d prefer not to talk about bread.

“There was a loaf the other day and the crust was so tough ­— I was trying to tear it off and if I’d still had a dog, the dog would have done it better.

“Modern bread is terrible in my opinion. Absolutely terrible.”

Don't forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.