The night the former king and his wife crept back to Portsmouth - Nostalgia

After the abdication the duke and his wife, Wallis Simpson later the Duchess of Windsor, moved to France where they were married.

In September 1939, Admiral Sir William James, Commander-in-Chief Portsmouth from 1939-1942, was told by Winston Churchill to receive the duke in Portsmouth.

In his 1946 book The Portsmouth Letters James tells us: ‘HMS Kelly, Mountbatten’s destroyer, secured alongside at about nine o’clock and I had a guard of honour on the jetty.

‘I have never seen a guard after sunset before but it was the best I could do to meet with Winston’s wishes.

‘The Duke looked extremely well and very young when he stepped off the gangway. Later he and the Duchess dined on the Kelly and then came to Admiralty House. He had no valet or secretary and his first job was to find if his car had arrived from Southampton.’

How strange it must have been for the former King to have had to fend for himself after a lifetime of being waited on.

It seems the duke and duchess were here to visit the War Office to meet Churchill about some future position or other but, as we know, owing to his association with the Nazis, he was sent to the Bahamas.

• Between 1956 and 958, the aircraft carrier HMS Centaur was placed in Portsmouth Dockyard hands to have a six-degree angled flight deck added. Steam catapults and arrestor cables were also added.

In 1959, Centaur was used during the making of the film Sink The Bismarck to depict flight operations from the naval carriers Victorious and Ark Royal. Three surviving Fairey Swordfish biplanes were restored and flown from her deck.

Centaur was laid down in 1944 in Belfast and launched in April 1947. She was commissioned on September 1, 1953. She ended her days as an accommodation ship, towed to Devonport in 1970. Two years later she was towed away for breaking.

• One of the most unusual pubs in Portsmouth, in Warwick Street, Somers Town, was the Mystery. After surviving the blitz and the demolition of surrounding houses in the 1960s and ’70s the pub was demolished in 2005 after an arson attack.

At one time the pub was surrounded by The Harp, The Actaen and The Stratford, all gone. No doubt vintage car fans can tell me the make of cars, but is that a Rolls-Royce on the right?