Using hlsearch and noh

Question

I am using the following two items in my mapping:

set hlsearch
nnoremap <esc><esc> :noh<return>

When I search I normally like to see highlighting, and then once I get to 'where I want', I disable the highlighting. However, it seems whenever I run a function, I lose the :noh and my search results keep re-highlighting. Is this a common issue, and if so, how is it dealt with? For a function in my vimrc would the following work?

func MyFunction()
    call execute('noh')
    " rest of function...
endfunc