A personal crusade by HMS Iron Duke senior rating John Davies ended when the frigate visited her affiliated port of Hull.

The chief petty officer decided to collect bits and pieces of foreign currency when he heard the Royal National Lifeboat Institution could convert the loose change into sterling to boost their coffers.

He filled a bucket with 25kg of coins, mostly gathered during the Type 23 frigate’s drug-busting spell in the Caribbean last year.

Payback came when Iron Duke sailed into Kingston-upon-Hull to celebrate the freedom of the city.

The warship was accompanied into the East Coast port by the Pride of the Humber lifeboat, which collected the bucket when it came alongside the frigate on the passage up the estuary.

That wasn’t the end of the fund-raising during the visit to Humberside.

Iron Duke’s Commanding Officer, Cdr Peter Carden, and the ship’s company strolled into the children’s ward of the Royal Infirmary to hand over £3,000, raised by events such as horse-racing on board the ship and a beard-growing competition.

The money will help to equip a sensory room to encourage youngsters with autism to interact with their surroundings.

The visit to the East Coast city gave Hull’s Lord Mayor a chance to get back to sea. Cllr Ken Branson served as a chief stoker, and never enjoyed the privilege of a port entry on the bridge – until Iron Duke’s visit to his home city.

The mayor later took the salute at a march past by the ship’s company of the frigate, alongside Cdr Carden.