When Peggy Hayton visited the UK from her home in Canada in the year of her 90th birthday, she decided to include the Isle of Man on her itinerary, making a return visit after more than 60 years.

Now 93, she’s been back each year since then to the island, which was the destination of numerous family holidays before the war. She also visited with her late husband, John, during the 1940s before the couple, along with their then two-year-old son Tony, emigrated to Canada in 1953.

Her family hailed from Southport, so the island was a popular and perhaps slightly exotic holiday destination for people in the north west.

’I came here year after year as a child with my parents and we stayed in Port Erin. It felt like going abroad in a time when people didn’t do that. It’s a contrast now, when we get on the plane in Ottawa and seven hours later we are in the UK.

’When we emigrated to Canada in 1953, we got on the boat in Liverpool and we were on board for six nights at sea before we arrived,’ she said.

On holiday, the family stayed in a boarding house on Port Erin promenade and on other occasions at the old Imperial Hotel in Port Erin.

’Port Erin is bigger than in those days. I also remember walking up Bradda Head and down to Fleshwick Bay. It was a very steep slope down to the beach,’ she said.

All that came to an end when areas of the island were used as an internment camp during the war and sea travel became too dangerous. Peggy joined the ATS during the war and her husband-to-be served in the army in north Africa and Italy.

They married after the war had ended and returned together to the island for holidays but soon made the decision to emigrate to Canada, where they thought there would be better opportunities.

In fact, the return visit three years ago had a dual purpose, as Tony explained: ’My aunt and uncle died and wanted their ashes to be scattered in the Isle of Man so when we came back I had two sets of ashes in my holdall,’ he said.

The two of them took the mountain railway to the top of Snaefell and duly scattered the ashes, and a trip up Snaefell each visit has now become an obligatory part of their Isle of Man pilgrimmage.

’We’ve never been to the TT but we do see the TV coverage of the TT in Canada. The scenery is fantastic and it’s a very beautiful island. It’s also part of my earliest memories as a child.

’The island is a world of no rush or mayhem and the Manx people have always been very hospitable,’ she said.