THE end of HMS Southampton’s 28-year career will be marked tomorrow at a decommissioning ceremony.

The Type 42 Destroyer, which has clocked up more than 700,000 nautical miles on operations around the world, is being replaced by Type 45 Destroyers.

The first Type 45 – HMS Daring – arrived at her Portsmouth home at the end of January.

The Rev Scott Brown, Principal Church of Scotland and Free Churches chaplain, will conduct the decommissioning service, accompanied by the Band of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines.

HMS Southampton was built at Vosper Thorny-croft in Southampton, launched in January 1979 and commissioned into service in October 1981.

She served in the Falklands War, on security missions to the Gulf, and in Montserrat when the Chances Peak volcano erupted in 1995 and the population had to be evacuated.