MEMORIES OF THE HAYLING bILLY AND HAYLING ISLAND

Rural Railways article 22 September 1900 In an article on "Queer Travelling' The Weekly Standard and Express explains that 'at North Hayling a train only stops when a driver sees a passenger on the platform, or a passenger has expressed a wish to alight there'.

A discussion was opened with reference to the flooding of land and houses, by high tides, near North Hayling station. W. Carpenter Turner stated that the Council had been communicating with the LB&SCR Company with the object of inducing them to raise the railway or erect a sea wall on the side of the permanent way. [...]

In the 1920s and early 30s several children travelled with their mother from Tottenham to Langstone Station to spend the summer holidays with "Grandfather and Grandma Dedman" at The Old Mill. The 1911 census for the former windmill at Langstone shows George Dedman as a 60 year old cowman, his wife Mary, and two of [...]

I had the pleasure of meeting Gill at the Station Theatre display last week. She kindly brought with her the 'Memories' article below and some really great photographs that I shall load later. I travelled on the Hayling Billy train from West Town to Havant from 1960 to 1962 as I was attending Portsmouth College [...]

I had an interesting session with Noel Pyecroft 26 Oct 2012 during which he related the following story... Noel's father, Harold Pyecroft, and Jack Wilkinson were on duty checking the identification of all those passing over the bridge. The island was pretty well locked down during the war and both of them were in the [...]

Hayling Railway in Wartime by Derek Oakley The importance of the railway line between Havant and Hayling Island during World War 2 cannot be underestimated. Although the Island was a restricted area with only about 4,000 residents, it was soon inundated with service personnel, mostly Royal Navy and Army.. The Goods Shed, now The Station Theatre [...]

This article originally appeared in the Hayling Islander. We have permission from both the Hayling Islander and the author (Vic Pierce-Jones) to reproduce this article on our website.   It is well known that during the war Hayling Island was used as a decoy site, luring enemy planes to drop their bombs here instead of [...]

This one of a series of articles which appeared in the 2003 editions of the Hayling Islander. These were to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the closure of the Hayling branch line. Reproduced here with the kind permission of Jill Belcher and the editor of the Hayling Islander.   EXACTLY 40 years ago this month, [...]

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 [...]

I love the railways, always will. Such delightful memories – a younger sister with three older brothers, what fun, what mischief we got up to! Our holidays (one a year – a week) were always spent on a ‘Run-about ticket’. We didn’t have a car, neither did many other kids on the council estate I [...]

When I was about 15, I was working for a local newspaper shop collecting the national papers from the freight office at the railway station. I got to know the station porter and we would chat to pass the time of day. When the porter retired, about 3 years later, he bought the bungalow next [...]

Sarah recently sent in the following memory as a result of our appeal in the July Hayling Islander, --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Re: your request in the most recent Hayling Islander for memories of the Hayling Billy, my sister and I used to catch the train daily to school from North Hayling Halt (we lived at Queensway, North [...]

I was just five years old when the 'Hayling Billy' stopped running and must have personally done my last journey in the summer of 1963. My family come from East Molesey in Surrey but my uncle and aunt, Ken and Phyllis (Eileen) Chandler, had lived on Hayling since the 1940's and my great aunt, Lilian Richardson, [...]

In about 1946 or 47, my late wife came on holiday from Bolton, Lancs, to stay with a couple on the island. Her brother had been stationed at Eastney during the war, and had got to know them. She told me she had travelled down on the Hayling Billy. Little did she think that 20 [...]

Like many families in the mid-1950s we were not hugely well-off and holidays were still regarded as a luxury. However, one of Dad's work colleagues knew a man who rented out a bungalow at Eastoke, on Hayling Island,and so it was that in the Summer of 1956 we headed off by train from our local [...]

When I was a child in the late 1950s and early 1960s our family would visit Hayling on day trips, catching the No. 68 Southdown bus to Havant and then going by train to Hayling. On leaving Hayling Station we would walk down Staunton Avenue to the beach. We would spend the day in the [...]

Hello I was introduced to the Hayling Billy by an old school teacher Mr Read from Bosmere Junior school which i attended from about 1976 - 79. We used to have an after school cinema club showing old films etc. On a couple of occassions Mr Read would show his collection of movies and slides [...]

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 [...]

Another recollection from Ted Gale. This incident occurred following the closure of the railway and installation of the Terrier Tank locomotive at the Hayling Billy public house. Person(s) unkown painted railway lines, from the locomotive, across the road, to Bentleys shop. Ted was called in to investigate but no one admitted to knowing anything about it. [...]