The Monsarrat Connection
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South Stack - a familiar landmark to the MonsarratsAnglesey played a big part in the early life of Nicholas Monsarrat, the famous author. His family came from Liverpool, and Hafod was their island retreat. Long summer holidays meant residence in Hafod, when much of the family's time was taken up with sailing. They were all keen members of the Trearddur Bay Sailing Club, and Nicholas honed his skills in yachting regattas and impromptu races. All this was to stand him in good stead in later life, in more ways than one.
Monsarrat is known today as a writer, with an impressive collection of novels and tales of the sea to his name. But of course he also served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, and saw action in World War II on a number of small escorts, trying to get between unarmed merchant ships and German U-boats. This was a thankless and dangerous task, and he wrote about it after the war in a number of books - including 'The Cruel Sea', which was made into a great black-and-white film with Jack Hawkins starring. Monsarrat was a pacifist, and so his active service was at odds with his beliefs. Perhaps we can get an idea of how he felt from his stories, even if we can never really appreciate the horror and the terror of the war at sea.
His time in Trearddur Bay is captured in 'My Brother Denys' - a book dedicated to Denys Monsarrat, his brother who was killed on active service in Egypt during the war. The carefree 'swallows and amazons' days spent racing around in fast yachts off the Anglesey coast must been as if from another world to Monsarrat as he looked back from the post-war years.
Today, you can stay in Hafod and look out through the large picture windows onto the sea in all its ever-changing states. And as you do, perhaps you can imagine the ebb and flow of family life, the laughter and family squabbles, that were enjoyed by the Monsarrat family before the war changed their lives forever, as it was to do for millions and millions of families around the globe.