MEMORIES OF THE HAYLING bILLY AND HAYLING ISLAND

It was around the mid 1950s when I set out on an occasional venture.  I was carrying a one-year-old daughter and holding the hand of the other as we boarded the bus from Cowplain to Havant Station. There we clambered aboard the Hayling Billy for the lovely scenic journey across the sea to Hayling. After the long [...]

In 1947 I was living in Highgate. (I was aged 7). We got a taxi to Waterloo, then the train to Havant, then the Hayling Billy. We walked up to Warner's Southleigh Holiday camp, in St Mary's Road. Before we left we packed a trunk with all our holiday gear. The trunk was picked up by the rail company [...]

Rowena lived in West Lane and could see the train across her garden. As a child aged 7, Rowena and her sisters loved to watch the trains go by; they also used the trains as clocks as they used to run regularly. She has memories of the crackling of the corn; this happened because the [...]

Angela sadly does not remember much about her father, but has kindly shared the little she does know about his life and work on the Billy Line: My Dad, Robert William Welch (Known as Jack on the railway), was born on 30 November 1911; he lived his whole life in Portsmouth. From what I understand he [...]

These wooden set squares which came into the possession of local Havant builders are inscribed: Cut in Leigh Park 1853. The day that George Couzens was killed on the SCR railway commonly called 'Old Brooksey'. 1889 1853 36 years ago Looks bad The remaining words are not readily decipherable. A typed copy of the burial [...]

Herbert Outen, driver, at Hayling Island station For me as a young girl born and raised in Havant, one of the highlights of the school summer holidays was a trip to Hayling Island. This took place from about 1957 or 1958 onwards (I was born in 1946). My best friends Lynda or Myra would be as excited as [...]

Terrier inside Fratton depot I was born on 20 October 1930; at the age of 14 I began working on the railway. I worked at the Motor Power Depot in Fratton as a ‘Fitter's Lad’; I would have to run around getting tools and things for the fitter, his name was Bert Gibbs. I was with Bert until [...]

My father was born in 1908. He left school at 14, and worked in the surveyor's dept of our local builder. He was encouraged to get a job with a pension, so applied to Southern Railways and got the job. Later he spent five years trying to shoot German aeroplanes out of the sky. After the war he [...]

Terrier replenishing its water tanks at Havant My family moved to Hayling in 1949 when I was just four years old. We frequently used the train and as children my friend and I enjoyed playing on the tracks and along the adjacent shore. I had the privilege of travelling on the Hayling Billy twice daily during term time [...]

No 46 Newington at the Hayling Billy Pub on Hayling Island My parents lived in Surrey between Guildford and Farncombe in the 1940s and 50s. The first time I visited Hayling was in 1950 when I was about seven years old and my brother was still in his pram. My parents took us on the train from Farncombe [...]

St Patrick's Open Air School, Hayling Island I can remember my one and only ride on the train very clearly. It was late in the year of 1952. I was five years old. I travelled from Newbury to London on the train with my mother and stepfather, where I was met by two nuns who took me from [...]

The billy passing over the viaduct at sunset I was born and lived on Hayling Island as a child; my mother was a dancer and taught there. I travelled on the Billy Line from as young as three months old. My grandmother used to take me, I used to go to school in Woking so would travel on [...]

Hayling Halt (also known as North Hayling) William, Ernest, Beatrice, Kathleen and John Dedman were born between 1914 and 1923. In the summer holidays they travelled by train with their mother from Tottenham to Langstone to stay with 'Grandpa and Grandma Dedman' at The Old Mill, near The Royal Oak. Grandpa Dedman was a cowman and the family sometimes [...]

I only had one trip on the Billy and that was in about 1949 when I was 12. I was with a school friend who was a railway nut and was rhapsodising about 'longitudinal sleepers' and so forth. For me the trip to the seaside was the thing, but for him it was the train ride. However, long [...]

Triggs house behind the station buildings where Martin and others had their bicycles stored for 3d per week. Martin moved from Birmingham to Hayling Island because his sister was sick with asthma; she went to St Patrick's the open-air school. She came down two years before the family, but her asthma was so much better that the whole [...]

The railway viaduct where Brian and his school friends would 'grope' for mullet. As a child I lived in Hayling at 117 Kings Rd. My father used to work at Hayling Fairground; it's where he met my mother. They got married and I have fond memories of my childhood there. Hayling was a different place then, we'd have [...]

During my childhood our summer ‘holiday’ involved long walks and homemade picnics. However, one day was always special. Sandwiches, homemade shortbread, fairy cakes filled with fruit and topped with a crunchy, sugar coating, flasks of milky tea, swimwear and most importantly buckets and spades, were soon packed and ready for a grand adventure. Everyone carried [...]

When I was a young man, picking up winkles on the muds of Langston and Chichester harbours was a common sight in the winter. My father told me that a local man, Rueben Clark, born about 1853, picked up in South Gutner Lake , or as we know it, Verner Creek, 52 bushels of winkles [...]

My father and mother kept cows. Between 1934 and 1946 we were given permission to remove the grass cuttings which the railway platelayers had cut and left to dry on the railway embankment. We also gathered Sea Spinach (now called Sea Beet) from harbour side of the railway embankment, this was good to eat but [...]