Residents of the Scottish coastal town of Montrose have a permanent reminder of their naval links.
The arrival of the bell from HMS Montrose, the veteran Type 23 frigate, completes the memorial display to the ship in her namesake community.
Throughout her 30-year operational career, the Devonport ship maintained regular contact with her namesake town and the wider Angus community, calling in on the small east coast port whenever her programme allowed.
Some 5,000 local residents filed aboard the ship on the frigate’s farewell visit in March last year.
Since then the ship has been decommissioned, stripped of what might be re-used elsewhere in the Fleet, especially the Type 23 flotilla, while objects of no military but of tremendous sentimental value were offered to the ship’s company and those connected with HMS Montrose down the years.
No object is more iconic on any ship than her bell – it’s the items divers seek to recover from wrecks to prevent them falling into the hands of unscrupulous souvenir hunters.
Thankfully no such threat was posed in this case: it just took a request from RN veteran David Moxey via Angus MP David Doogan … and the RN agreed to loan the bell as centrepiece of an exhibition which also features frigate’s nameplate, White Ensign and a scale model of F236.
The display was unveiled by Mr Doogan and the RN’s Regional Commander for Scotland and Northern Ireland, Brigadier Andy Muddiman, his Chief of Staff at Navy headquarters Commander Morgan McDonald, local VIPs, Provost Brian Boyd, Royal Navy and Royal Marines veterans and Gary Wilson who served aboard HMS Montrose while she was deployed to Bahrain.
The frigate clocked up some 400,000 miles under the White Ensign on her patrols around the globe, spending the final years of her extensive career on an extended deployment in the Gulf/Middle East, proving particularly successful at intercept drug runners as part of a wider maritime security mission.
The display can be seen in the rather imposing Montrose Museum – one of the oldest purpose-built museums in Scotland – in Panmure Place, Fridays through to Mondays, 10.30am-4pm. Entry is free.
