FOR some she was nothing more than a rust bucket - while to others she was, quite literally, a tug of love.

But the 300-tonne John H Amos, Britain's last remaining steam example of its kind, is to be hoisted from the water today in a massive operation that will hopefully see the start of her £6m restoration.

The steam paddler, which toiled tirelessly on the River Tees for more than 30 years, will be lifted from the River Medway, in Kent, this afternoon.

She will be placed on a barge for safe-keeping while her owner Martin Stevens, who has formed the Medway Maritime Trust, begins the search for National Heritage Lottery funding.

He hopes the listed boat, which played an integral role in the building of Tees Port during the Sixties, will finally be restored to her former glory and used for ceremonial purposes up and down the country.

And one day, he said he hoped to take her home to Teesside.

"I bought her in 1976 because even then, I realised she was a very special vessel," he said.

"Some 30 years later, everyone else realised it and she was listed, putting her alongside other historic boats, such as the Victory and the Cutty Sark.

"It has already been surveyed and needs about five or six million pounds spent on it.

They won't give Lottery grants to individuals, so we formed a trust and are hoping to be successful."

But Mr Stevens said John H Amos was a huge part of his life and said he was apprehensive about the operation getting under way.

"A giant crane is coming in to do the lift," he said.

"We will put some big wire ropes underneath it and then literally fly it down the river for about a mile to put her on dry dock. She is no longer floatable and needs a big Lottery grant and some love and care to put her right.

"I will feel good when it's on the pontoon. It's a difficult lift and it will be interesting."

Mr Stevens, 64, said it could be many years before it is fully restored.

"I have joked that by the time it is restored, we will have to apply for another grant for a wheelchair access for me," he said.

Ron Young, 65, from Thornaby, who worked as an engineer on John H Amos for the Tees Conservancy Commission, said he would always remember her fondly.

"She was a lovely old boat,"

he said. "It took the fireman all his time to keep the steam up because her engines were so big, but she was wonderful and I enjoyed my time on her.

"I used to race her up the river. Some people didn't like her, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and she was a beauty to me."