Just Like Yesterday !

A Memory of Hayling Island.

Wow.. seeing this awesome photograph transports me back in time because in this year I would have been taking this very ferry over from the Southsea side after taking the trolley bus and regular bus from the North End in Portsmouth to make the long trip to Hayling.

Some of our group would drive with Aunty Linda in her old Austin (with the canvas, fold down roof) around to Hayling by road , carrying all the sandwiches, blankets and other beach paraphernalia.

I always opted for the ferry (did I have a choice ?.. fortunately, no) as I loved stepping off the dock down into the ferry which had bench seats alongside the gunwales. Sometimes I would stand with my legs apart, riding the swell as we swung out into the heavy running tide. I was in my element with the wind streaming through my hair and the smell of the marshes in my nostrils. Arrr..matey, avast ye swabs !!

Upon reaching the other shore we had a pretty long walk where we settled down into the dunes next to the old golf club building, away from all the nasty holidaymaker stuff in the town.

Hayling was a place where I managed to get away from my over controlling and mean step parents for a while as they settled down amongst the gorse bushes in the relative shelter and enjoyed the sun. I took off immediately for the beach where I would spend hours searching for crabs and shells in the tidal pools and running on the sands.

There would be some pretty heavy seas coming into Hayling at high tide, what with there being a sandy bottom, but we had a lot of fun diving through the pounding 6-8+ foot waves as they came onshore, all under the watchful eye of my step grandfather, Pop or my Aunty Linda. Pop used to cruise along on his back like a heavily laden trawler, huffing and puffing, his hands barely cutting the surface of the water as he propelled himself along. Linda saved me from drowning at Southsea once when I put my foot down to touch bottom and submetged as I discovered I was in deeper water than I thought. Her teacher's 'eagle eye' fortunately spotted me going under and it was almost instantaneously that her hand went under my bum and pushed me back up!