NOSTALGIA: Portsmouth or Southampton '“ new theory on sub photo

HMS Porpoise in Portsmouth Harbour... or the River Itchen, Southampton, as suggested by one reader?

Mike Nolan reckoned it is looking north up Portsmouth Harbour with the dockyard on the right painted over to disguise it.

Camper Nicholson’s boatyard at Gosport, on the left, gave the game away – or did it?

‘It’s not Portsmouth Harbour at all,’ says Paul Mayo. ‘I think it’s on the River Itchen at Southampton.’

Looking at the womens clothes I guess this picture was taken in the 1920s. Its at Beach Road (Bank Corner) ,Hayling Island. Picture: Roger Allen Collection

He adds: ‘In 1912, Camper and Nicholson bought the shipbuilding yard of John Goodman Fay & Co at Northam and made it their head office and site to build larger yachts and coasters. It closed in 1979.’

Sorry Paul, we don’t agree.

I sent your e-mail to Mike who mentioned another part of the picture.

Above the two sailors bending away from camera is the Gosport ferry pontoon with a ferry approaching from Portsmouth. To the left, below the CA of Camper there are what appear to be two white upright posts. These are part of one of the floating bridges which were kept in reserve. It appears the scene is in Portsmouth Harbour after all.

With a herd of cattle strolling down Station Road, Hayling Island, in the 1930s, there would be plenty of manure for local rose growers. Picture: Roger Allen Collection

Any other thoughts?

HMS Porpoise was the last sub lost in the Second World War. She was bombed and sunk by Japanese aircraft on January 19, 1945.

•I’m now spending the rest of the day at Hayling Island.

In the second picture and looking like what were called ‘It girls’, are two women walking along Beach Road, possibly in the 1920s. The gent on the right appears to have a ‘Blackpool’ hankie tied to his head, you know, a clean white handkerchief with a knot in each corner to stop it blowing away. The caption says this is at Bank Corner. Is it still called that?

Long before the modern miniature railway from the funfair to Eastoke, Hayling Island this one in the 1940s.

•The third picture is of Station Road, Hayling Island, in the days when cattle were herded down the street.

There is a shop on the right advertising the Daily Mirror. Is it still there? There are no kerbs to give an edge to the road.

I wonder if gardeners came out and collected the manure in buckets for their roses?

•Today there is a miniature railway running from Hayling funfair to Eastoke Corner.

It has been named the Hayling Billy after the original British Railways train that ran between Havant and Hayling Island.

There was though, another miniature railway on the island called the Eastoke Corner Miniature Railway. It ran in the 1940s and perhaps later on an elliptical track on what, I have been told, is now the car park.

Does anyone remember it?