Return to Hayling Island by Miriam Halahmy

I set my cycle of three novels ( Hidden, 2011, Illegal 2012, Stuffed, yet to be published) on Hayling Island, off the south coast of England, opposite the Isle of Wight. My parents lived on the Island for 25 years and it always feels like going home, even though they passed away a long time ago. But once I finished the books and two came out, I felt my links to the Island began to wane and I wondered if I would continue visiting. For years I was coming down to the Island for weekends and day trips to do my research or just to write in all my favourite places. For three years running we rented an apartment on the beach and I wrote chapter after chapter. But this summer we had no plans to come for a week.

Then Whitsun weekend promised to be hot and sunny, family were planning visits and I felt the old pull of the Island and all its quiet and restful beauty. I booked a B&B, we packed up the boot and off we went. And do you know something? All those wonderful feelings about the Island came flooding back in! Never mind I wasn’t writing a novel in this setting anymore; never mind I didn’t have any reason to research; all my favourite places drew me back in and hugged me as if I had never been away.

We started as we always do at Langstone High street and the Old Mill which is on the mainland, just past the bridge to the Island. This is one of my favourite walks of all time. Neville Shute wrote his novel Pied Piper in the Mill and the mill ponds behind the Mill feature in Illegal.

Then we walked round to the old smuggler path which led up from the beach.

I have been walking this path up to Pook Lane, where the smugglers took their contraband off the beach, since I was nineteen years old and it gives me just the same thrill all these decades later. Pook Lane is a wonderful green tunnel this time of the year, a sunken path between fields which probably goes back to medieval times.

Then we crossed the bridge to the Island  and over the weekend we visited all our favourite places again.

This is one of the sites left over from defences build on the Island for WW2. Nearby was a gun emplacement which was bombed and several soldiers killed in the aftermath of a bombing raid on nearby Portsmouth.

This is one of the houseboats on the Kench,which features in my novel, Illegal. Lindy and Karl spend a couple of nights in a houseboat like this one. This one is a converted D-Day Landing craft. Part of the Mulberry harbour which was towed over to the Normandy beaches was built around this part of the Island and there is still a piece of it sitting out at sea.

 As it was late May, it was poppy time on the Island.

Coming back to the Island made me realise that I still love being here, writing on the beaches and in the cafes and thinking about my next novel, even though it is nothing to do with the Island. I have found a lovely new place to stay, with a balcony, so I am already planning my next writing retreat down on the Island to whip the WIP into shape and of course, breathe in the wonderful inspiring sea air.

Hayling Island, D-Day and the COPP by Miriam Halahmy

Oyster beds now bird reserves on Hayling

History is one of my passions and setting three novels on Hayling Island, opposite the Isle of Wight, gave me chance to explore the Island’s history which goes right back to prehistoric times. Hayling has been famous for its salt beds – they think that’s why the Romans came – and its oyster beds, now transformed into amazing bird reserves.

But Hayling also has a very proud history during WWII. Five little ships left Hayling in May 1940 to rescue the army stranded in Dunkirk and I tell part of that story in my first Hayling novel, Hidden. I had the opportunity to go onto one of these little ships, the Count Dracula, which was an amazing experience.

 The Island had a long line of defensive pill boxes, some of which are still standing today.

Part of the Mulberry Harbour was built in the waters around Hayling. This was the artificial harbour which was towed over the Channel after D-Day in 1944 and put together off the coast of Normandy like a huge jigsaw puzzle. It was capable of moving 7000 tons of vehicles and goods a day. There are still a couple of bits offshore in the sea near the ferry end of the Island.

But perhaps the biggest role that Hayling Island played in WWII was the setting up of  the COPP : Combined Operations Pilotage Parties.  Their job was to cross secretly to Normandy and survey the beaches under the noses of the enemy in the months before D-Day. I was very pleased to find out that  the COPP was set up at the Hayling Island Sailing Club at Sandy Point, two minutes from where my family lived for 25 years.

The story of the COPP has been told in the ‘Discover Hayling’s Heroes’ booklet.

This was a group of less than 200 men who would be responsible ultimately for saving the lives of thousands of servicemen through their extraordinary bravery. Their job was to reconnoitre the Normandy beaches prior to D-Day to ensure the success of the landings. Little is know about the work of these men and their role in helping to end the war.

Setting off from the Hayling beach one moonless night, December 31^st, because as Churchill rightly pointed out, the Germans would be too busy celebrating New Year to notice anyone on the beaches, the men had to change into huge rubber suits, weighed down with equipment, go ashore,  take samples and measurements and get away without being spotted. This was only one of countless nerve wracking expeditions carried out by COPP. But as one man, Jim Booth, said, “When you’re a young man and part of a good team of like-minded extroverts, you just think it’s all an exciting adventure, and you never imagine you might not survive.”

A memorial to the COPP is currently under construction on Hayling beach, on the south coast facing France.

Wherever you walk on Hayling there are reminders of the role this little Island played in WWII, with abandoned supply stores, anti-tank barriers and memorial plaques to those who lived and died here.

My Hayling cycle is complete. The third novel, Stuffed, comes out next March. But although I am halfway through a completely new novel, not set on the Island, I still love coming down here to write and walk on the beaches and refresh my London lungs. If you haven’t been yet – do give it a try one day.

www.miriamhalahmy.com