Even in the old days hopes were still high for Pompey

With the new season only weeks away let us hope this Plum cartoon is prophetic of the new season.

Plum was the Evening News/Football Mail cartoonist for many years and his classic drawings made many a reader smile.

I must admit, I do not quite get the gist of this cartoon.

Pompey had won two Championships on the trot – 1948-49 and 1949-50.

So why is the angelic lift attendant asking the question ‘Going up?’ in 1951, I wonder?

HMS Biter, tossed like a cork, ploughs through rough seas in 1943. Six Seafires are secured on her flight deck

n I purchased my first house, off Highland Road, Eastney, in 1984 for just under £26,000 – and that was a struggle.

I can only imagine the problems young people have purchasing a house in this day and age.

How wonderful it was, back in 1939, before the days of inflation and high wage claims to be able to buy a home for less than £1,000, just £450 to be exact.

All you needed was a £5 deposit and the place was yours. No extras or road charges, just pay your fiver and move in.

On what must have been a very cold evening we see HM Queen Elizabeth being greeted on arrival on board HMS Vanguard.

n I was sent this photograph by a reader who left no name.

It states that it shows Queen Elizabeth being greeted on board the Royal Navy’s last battleship HMS Vanguard.

It appears to be a cold evening and the Queen is wearing her best fur.

She is being greeted by an Admiral, possibly Admiral James.

If you have knowledge of this photograph perhaps you might let me know.

n Being tossed through stormy seas we see HMS Biter, an escort carrier.

She was built as a merchantman in America but converted and loaned to the Royal Navy in 1942 and commissioned as HMS Biter.

In 1945 she was returned to the Americans and then sold on to France and renamed Dixmude.

Being American-built she suffered from having a wooden flight-deck, although this did not harm her like many American carriers in the Pacific after kamikaze attacks.

Biter engaged in sterling service for the Royal Navy in her three years of service, mostly on convoy duties.