Nevil Shute Norway
1899 - 1960

Nevil Shute was a popular novelist, as well as a successful aeronautical engineer. In the 50s and 60s he was one of the world's best-selling popular novelists, writing classic novels such as "A Town Like Alice" and "On the Beach", (both made into films).

He worked as an aeronautical engineer in Hamble and Hamble features throughout his novels. He moored his yacht here and Hamble is undoubtedly one of his spiritual homes.

One of Shute's books, What Happened to the Corbetts; is actually set in Hamble.

It recounts the life of the Corbetts, who, after a few nights of enduring terrifying aerial bombardments in the slit trench in their back yard, escape Southampton for the relative safety of Hamble where their yacht is moored.