NOSTALGIA: There was a lot more bovver with the hover in early days at Southsea

There was no protection for the unsuspecting public walking along the Esplanade, so when the hovercraft ran up the shingle beach anyone walking past was shrouded in mist, shingle and sea spray not to mention the odd pebble.

It's a little different today with a concrete landing area and protective wall for the public.

Built by Westland/Saunders-Roe, the SRN2 first '˜flew' in 1961.

It could carry 48 passengers and began its career running from Southsea to Ryde, Isle of Wight, in 1963. During its operational life it carried 30,000 passengers to and fro across the Solent.

'¢ Adolf Hitler, leader and Chancellor of Germany was a non-believer and not a churchgoer. However, on Tuesday, January 28, 1936, he attended a memorial service to King George V in Berlin.

The king had died the week before on January 20. The service took place in St George's Church in what later became East Germany.

I don't suppose for a minute Hitler joined in any hymn singing.

St. George's was built in 1855 and destroyed by allied bombing during the Second World War. At the end of the war what remained of the church became part of the Russian sector of Berlin and remained in ruins until 1950 when the remains were removed.

In 1950 a new St George's Church was built in the western sector of the city.

This photograph is somewhat grainy but I have used it as evidence, as it were.

'¢Â Here is another photo from the 1974 Portsmouth carnival showing a giant postman just outside the Queen's Hotel, Southsea. You can just see one of the gateway pillars on the right. To get an idea of the scale, there's a real postman alongside. In the background is the Sandringham Hotel in Osborne Road.

Originally in colour, the photograph had turned orange with age so I converted it into black and white for clarity.

'¢ Anyone who knows me will tell you I do not use the metric system, either in weight or measurement. Even during the athletics last week I was telling my mate that the next race was the 220-yard sprint, not the 200 metres or whatever.

So I was chuffed when I saw this photograph of the new multi-million pound jet fighter the F-35B Lightning to be used on the new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. We're told it is so many metres long, wide and tall and can travel at so many kilometres an hour. But what was written on the side of the  cockpit, yes, a warning about cutting the canopy to within three inches. Wonderful. Imperialists still have a voice.