A PICTURE of HMS Hatherleigh in her prime in an earlier issue of the Times (May 9) has evoked further news of another vessel named after the town.

It was thought that the destroyer was named after Hatherleigh in its response to 'Warship Week' in 1941, when towns and cities around the country heeded the call of the National Government for monies to buy vital armaments.

HMS Hatherleigh was originally built for the British Royal Navy as HMS Hatherleigh but before her completion, she was transferred to the Royal Hellenic Navy and commissioned on July 27. 1942 as the Greek warship Constantine Kanaris.

Kanaris served throughout the war and during the Greek Civil War before she was returned to the Royal Navy in 1959 and broken up for scrap in 1960.

However Hatherleigh resident Dennis Bater recalled that the naming of the warship was not necessarily linked with any fundraising efforts by the town.

The former councillor told the Times: 'HMS Hatherleigh was named after the Hatherleigh Harriers hunt pack, whose master throughout the war was Captain Arthur Budgett.

'Captain Budgett was also in charge of the Royal Observer Corps at Hatherleigh during the war, which used the bellevedere on Hatherleigh Moor — a folly that has commanding views from Exmoor to Dartmoor.'

Dennis sent in a picture of the Hatherleigh Harriers from the 1940s with Captain Budgett and also his whipp, Jack Gould — on the white horse.

But HMS Hatherleigh was not the only maritime vessel with connections to the rural town.

On holiday in East Yorkshire two years ago, Dennis came across the former trawler 'Hatherleigh' which had become a 'corporate' ship — used by businesses to entertain their staff and clients.

Dennis said that it was not the only fishing trawler with Devon connections, as he believed that a Devonian, who had moved to the East Coast owned a number of fishing trawlers and included in this 'fleet' were the boats 'Hatherleigh', 'Winkleigh' and 'Bow.'

Dennis added: 'I think it's excellent to have ships and trawlers named after the town and quite amusing since Hatherleigh is very much a land locked one.

'Mind you, with all this global warming we're having, you never know, one day the town might find itself on the coast one-day!'