THE launch of the Medway Queen paddle steamer dates back 91 years this very week.

Also this week, BBC’s Antiques Roadshow Detectives programme visited the grand old vessel at her berth in the River Medway, across the Thames Estuary and a few miles from Southend Pier, which she used so often to visit.

Presenter Paul Atterbury, one of the experts on the Roadshow, boarded the Medway Queen, particularly to recall and to recount her heroic exploits when she became known as the Heroine of Dunkirk 75 years ago next month.

More than 3,000 men were rescued in nine days from the battle-scarred beaches of the French port thanks to the Medway Queen’s seven crossings and her shallow draft, allowing her to get so close to shore.

She became a familiar visitor to Southend after the war, sailing out of the Medway, across to the Pier and on to Margate, Clacton and other ports, carrying untold thousands of daytrippers in the years until 1964 when she went out of service.

She became a restaurant at the Isle of Wight for a while, but the venture was unsuccessful and the old lady was abandoned and eventually, rusting and rotting, she sank.

Thankfully, around 30 years ago, the Medway Queen Preservation Society rescued her, began fundraising and restoration work and received a £1.8 million National Lottery Heritage Fund grant.

The work continues, as do vital fundraising efforts.

When, next month, the Medway Queen is towed from its berth at Gillingham to join the 75th anniversary celebration to mark that wartime evacuation from Dunkirk, it might well be the first of similar visits from its home – including, perhaps, a short trip across the Thames to moor at Southend Pier to welcome visitors aboard.

In time, too, as restoration work continues and when funds allow, maybe the Medway Queen will be able to make her own, unaided, short voyages in and around the Thames.

Volunteers, fundraisers and employed apprentices and tradesmen are currently making the old lady smart and in the best possible shape to meet Royalty next month – although, likemany elderly, she is in need of support and encouragement to get out and about.