TEN years ago, a wayward pigeon swapped its usual cree for a Royal Navy frigate after losing its bearings over the North Atlantic, ten years ago.

Paul the pigeon, which was actually a female, was adopted by the crew of HMS Somerset after landing on the vessel on Friday, July 26, 3013.

The confused bird, which was believed to have originated from the Redcar area,was made to feel at home as crew fed and watered their latest recruit.

Read more: How a fire, and a pyromaniac, destroyed a Wensleydale landmark

Upon her unexpected arrival, Paul became a popular guest on deck and enjoyed the best hospitality from the ship's 185 crew members.

The chances of the lost bird winning her race were definitely over after she abandoned the sky for the ocean waves when she was 300miles out to sea.

Paul picked up her name before she was caught by Leading Seaman William Hughes, an ex-pigeon fancier himself.

He quickly discovered that he was in fact a female, but the name stuck anyway.

A veteran airman was reunited with a seaplane he saw service with during the Second World War, in July 2013.

Lance Robson last flew a Catalina flying boat in 1945 as a member of the RAF RV Coastal Command, flying with 190 and 210 squadrons.

Nearly 70 years on, the then-96-year-old was invited to see a Catalina up close again for its visit to the North-East as part of this year's Sunderland International Airshow.

Mr Robson, from Hartburn, Northumberland, said: "It was a thrill to be back in the old machine. It triggered off all sorts of memories of what used to be."

As a flight lieutenant, Mr Robson served as a navigator on Catalinas in the North Atlantic and as far east as Murmansk, in Russia, working on convoy protection searching for German U-boats.

Read next:

For more quality journalism direct to your inbox, subscribe to The Northern Echo here

The veteran was able to fly in the Catalina after his son-in-law Richard Cansdale heard it was coming to the airshow and contacted the Catalina Society, which arranged the meeting at Newcastle Airport yesterday.

The airframe of the Catalina dates from 1943 when it was flown by the Royal Canadian Airforce on search and rescue operations.

It was located in British Columbia by Plane Sailing and after a two-year restoration was flown across the Atlantic to its base in Duxford, Cambridgeshire, where it is displayed as a tribute to the bravery of crews during the Second World War.